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MAP  OF  THE   DELUGED  CONEMAUGH   DISTRICT. 


HISTORY 


OF 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


INCLUDING 


ALL  THE  FEARFUL  RECORD;   THE  BREAKING  OF  THE  SOUTH   FORK  DAM; 
THE    SWEEPING    OUT    OF    THK  CONEMAUGH   VALLEY;   THE  OVER- 
THROW OF  JOHNSTOWN;   THE  MASSING  OF  THE  WRECK  AT 
THE  RAILROAD  BRIDGE;  ESCAPES,  RESCUES,  SEARCHES 
FOR    SURVIVORS   AND  THE   DEAD;    RELIEF 
ORGANIZATIONS,  STUPENDOUS  CHARI- 
TIES, ETC.,  ETC. 

WITH   FULL  ACCOUNTS  ALSO   OF  THB 

DESTRUCTION   ON    THE    SUSQUEHANNA  AND    JUNIATA    HVERS,  AND    THB 
BALD   EAGLE  CREEK. 


WILLIS  FLETCHER  JOHNSON. 


ILLUSTRATED. 


EDGEWOOD    PUBLISHING    CO., 

1889. 


Copyright,  1 889,  by 
WILLIS  FLETCHER  JOHNSON. 


PREFACE. 


The  summer  of  1889  will  ever  be  memorable  for  its 
appalling  disasters  by  flood  and  flame.  In  that  period  fell 
the  heaviest  blow  of  the  nineteenth  century — a  blow 
scarcely  paralleled  in  the  histories  of  civilized  lands. 
Central  Pennsylvania,  a  centre  of  industry,  thrift  and 
comfort,  was  desolated  by  floods  unprecedented  in  the 
records  of  the  great  waters.  On  both  sides  of  the  Alle- 
ghenies  these  ravages  were  felt  in  terrific  power,  but  on 
the  western  slope  their  terrors  were  infinitely  multiplied 
by  the  bursting  of  the  South  Fork  Reservoir,  letting 
out  millions  of  tons  of  water,  which,  rushing  madly 
down  the  rapid  descent  of  the  Conemaugh  Valley, 
washed  out  all  its  busy  villages  and  Hurled  itself  in  a 
deadly  torrent  on  the  happy  borough  of  Johnstown. 
The  frightful  aggravations  which  followed  the  coming 
of  this  torrent  have  waked  the  deepest  sympathies  of 
this  nation  and  of  the  world,  and  the  history  is 
demanded  in  permanent  form,  for  those  of  the  present 
day,  and  for  the  generation  to  come. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Conemaugh  Valley  in  Springtime — Johnstown  and  its  Suburbs — 
Founded  a  Hundred  Years  ago — The  Cambria  Iron  Works — His- 
tory of  a  Famous  Industry — American  Manufacturing  Enterprise 
Exemplified — Making  Bessemer  Steel — Social  and  Educational 
Features — The  Busiest  City  of  its  Size  in  the  State, 15 

CHAPTER  II. 

Conemaugh  Lake — Remains  of  an  Old-time  Canal  System — Used  for 
the  Pleasure  of  Sportsmen — The  Hunting  and  Fishing  Club — 
Popular  Distrust  Growing  into  Indifference — The  Old  Cry  of 
"  Wolf ! " — Building  a  Dam  of  Straw  and  Mud — Neglect  Ripening 
into  Fitness  for  a  Catastrophe, 31 

CHAPTER  III. 

Dawning  of  the  Fatal  Day — Darkness  and  Rain — Rumors  of  Evil — 
The  Warning  Voice  Unheeded— A  Whirlwind  of  Watery  Death — 
Fate  of  a  Faithful  Telegrapher — What  an  Eye-Witness  Saw — A 
Solid  Wall  of  Water  Rushing  Down  the  Valley, 42 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The   Pathway  of   the    Torrent — Human  Beings   Swept   away   like 
'  Chaff— The  Twilight  of  Terror— The  Wreck  of  East  Conemaugh 
— Annihilation    of    Woodvale — Locomotives   Tossed    about    like    • 
Cockle-shells  by  the  mighty  Maelstrom, 51 

CHAPTER  V. 

"Johnstown  is  Annihilated" — Appearance  of  the  Wreck — An  Awful 
Sabbath  Spectacle — A  Sea  of  Mud  and  Corpses — The  City  in  a 
Gigantic  Whirlpool — Strange  Tokens  of  the  P'ury  of  the  Flood — 
Scene  from  the  Bridge — Sixty  Acres  of  Debris — A  Carnival  of 
Slaughter, 66 


Viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Pictures  of  the  Flood  Drawn  by  Eye-witnesses — A  Score  of  Loco- 
motives Swallowed  up — Railroad  Cars  Swept  away — Engineers 
who  would  not  Abandon  their  Posts — Awful  Scenes  from  a  Car 
Window — A  Race  for  Life — Victims  of  the  Flood, 8l 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Some  Heroes  of  the  Flood — The  Ride  of  Collins  Graves  at  Williams- 
burg  Recalled— John  G.  Parke's  Heroic  Warning — Gallant  Self- 
sacrifice  of  Daniel  Peyton — Mrs.  Ogle,  the  Intrepid  Telegraph 
Operator — Wholesale  Life  Saving  by  Miss  Nina  Speck, 97 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Stories  of  Suffering — A  Family  Swept  away  at  a  Stroke — Beside  a 
Sister's  Corpse — A  Bride  Driven  Mad — The  Unidentified  Dead — 
Courage  in  the  Face  of  Death — Thanking  God  his  Child  had  not 
Suffered— One  Saved  out  of  a  Household  of  Thirteen — Five  Saved 
out  of  Fifty-Five, 108 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Stories  of  Railroad  Men  and  Travelers  who  were  in  the  Midst  of  the 
Catastrophe — A  Train's  Race  with  the  Wave — Houses  Crushed  like 
Egcshells — Re'icsof  ihe  Dead  in  the  Tree  tops — A  Night  of  Horrors 
— Fire  and  Flood  Commingled — Lives  Lost  for  the  Sake  of  a  Pair  of 
Shoes, , 119 

CHAPTER  X. 

Scenes  in  a  House  of  Refuge — Stealing  from  the  Dead — A  Thousand 
Bodies  seen  Passing  over  the  Bridge — "  Kill  us,  or  Rescue  us !  " — 
Thrilling  Escapes  and  Agonizing  Losses — Children  Born  amid  the 
Flood — A  Night  in  Alma  Hall — Saved  through  Fear, 13 

CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Flight  to  the  Mountains — Saving  a  Mother  and  her  Babe — The 
Hillsides  Black  wiih  Refugees — An  Engineer's  Story — How  the 
Dam  gave  away — Great  Trees  Snapped  off  like  Pipe-stems  by  the 
Torrent, 147 


CONTENTS.  IX 

CHAPTER  XII. 

A  Desperate  Voyage — Scenes  like  those  after  a  Great  Battle — 
Mother  and  Babe  Dead  together — Praying  as  they  Drifted  to 
Destruction — Children  Telling  the  Story  of  Deaih — Significant 
Greetings  between  Friends — Prepared  for  any  News, 154 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Salutations  in  the  City  of  the  Dead — Crowds  at  the  Morgues — End- 
less Trains  of  Wngons  with  Ghastly  Freight — Registering  the  Sur- 
vivors— Minds  Unsettled  by  the  Tragedy — Horrible  Fragments  of 
Humanity  Scattered  through  Piles  of  Rubbish, l6l 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Recognizing  the  Dead — Food  and  Clothing  for  Destitute  Survivors — 
Looking  for  the  Lost — The  Bereaved  Burying  their  Dead — 
Drowned  Close  by  a  Place  of  Safety — A  Heroic  Editor — One  who 
would  not  be  Comforted, 171 

CHAPTER  XV. 

A  Bird'seye  View  of  the  Ruined  City — Conspicuous  Features  of  the 
Disaster — The  Railroad  Lines — Stones  and  Iron  Tossed  about 
like  Driftwood — An  Army  Officer's  Valuable  Services  in  Restor- 
ing and  Maintaining  Order, 179 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Clearing  a  Road  up  the  Creek — Fantastic  Forms  of  Ruin — An  Aban- 
doned Locomotive  with  no  Rail  to  Run  on — Iron  Beams  Bent 
like  Willow  Twigs — Night  in  the  Valley — Scenes  and  Sounds  of 
an  Inferno 188 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Sights  that  Greeted  Visitors — Wreckage  Along  the  Valley — Ruins  of 
the  Cambria  Iron  Works — A  Carnival  of  Drink — Violence  and 
Robbery — Camping  on  the  Hillsides — Rich  and  Pcor  alike 
Benefit, 198 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

The  First  Train  Load  of  Anxious  Seekers — Hoping  against  Hope — 
Many  Instances  of  Heroism — Victims  Seen  Drifting  down  beyond 
the  Reach  of  Help — Unavailing  Efforts  to  Rescue  the  Prey  of  the 
Flood, 207 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Newspaper  Correspondents  Making  their  Way  in — The  Railroads 
Helpless — Hiring  a  Special  Train — Making  Desperate  Sj>ecd— 
First  faces  of  the  Flood — Through  to  Johnstown  at  Last,  ....  216 

CHAPTER  XX. 

The  Work  of  the  Reporters — Strange  Chronicles  of  Heroism  and  of 
Woe — Deadly  Work  of  the  Telegraph  Wires — A  Baby's  Strange 
Voyage — Prayer  wonderfully  Answered — Steam  against  Torrent,  228 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Human  Ghouls  and  Vampires  on  the  Scene — A  Short  Shrift  for 
Marauders — Vigilance  Committees  Enforcing  Order — Plunderers  of 
the  Dead  Relentlessly  Dispatched — Outbursts  of  Righteous  Indig- 
nation,   238 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

The  Cry  for  Help  and  (he  Nation's  Answer — President  Harrison's 
Eloquent  and  Effective  Appeal — Governor  Beaver's  Message— A 
Proclamation  by  the  Governor  of  New  York— Action  of  the  Com- 
missioner of  Pensions — Help  from  over  the  Sea, 249 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

The  American  Heart  and  Purse  Opened  Wide — A  Flood  of  Gold 
against  the  Flood  of  Water — Contributions  from  every  Part  of  the 
Country,  in  Sums  Large  and  Small, 265 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Benefactions  of  Philadelphia — Organization  of  Charity — Train  loads 
of  Food  and  Clothing — Generous  spirit  of  Convicts  in  the  Peni- 
tentiary—Contributions from  over  the  Sea — Queen  Victoria's  sym- 
pathy— Letter  from  Florence  Nightingale, 281 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Raising  a  Great  Relief  Fund  in  New  York — Where  the  Money  came 
from — Churches,  Theatres  and  Prisons  join  in  the  good  work — 
More  than  One  Hundred  Thousand  Dollars  a  Day — A  few  Names 
from  the  Great  Roll  of  Honor, 292 


CONTENTS.  Xi 

CHAPTER  XXVI.  FAG. 

Breaking  up  the  Ruins  and  Burying  the  Dead — Innumerable  Funerals 
— The  Use  of  Dynamic — The  Holocaust  at  the  Bridge — The  Cam- 
bria Iron  Woiks — Pulling  out  Trees  with  Locomotives, 299 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Caring  for  Ihe  Sufferers — Noble  Work  of  Miss  Clara  Barton  and  the  Red 
Cross  Society— A  Peep  into  a  Hospital — Finding  Homes  for  the  Or- 
phans— Johnstown  Generous  in  itsWoe — A  Benevolent  Eating  House,  309 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Recovering  from  the  Blow — The  Voice  of  the  Locomotive  Heard 
again — Scenes  Day  by  Day  amid  the  Ruins  and  at  the  Morgue — 
Sirange  Salvage  from  the  Flood — A  Family  of  Little  Children,  .  .  319 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

The  City  Filled  with  Life  Again — Work  and  Bustle  on  Every  Hand — 
Railroad  Trains  Coming  In— Pathetic  Meetings  of  Friends  — Per- 
sistent Use  of  Dynamite  to  Break  Up  the  Masses  of  Wreckage — 
The  Daily  Record  of  Work  Amid  the  Dead, 341 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

Scenes  at  the  Relief  Stations — The  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  in 
Command — Imposing  Scenes  at  the  Railroad  Station — Cars  Loaded 
with  Goods  for  the  Relief  of  the  Destitute, 353 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

General  Hastings'  Headquarters — Duties  of  the  Military  Staff — A 
Flood  of  Telegrams  of  Inquiry  Pouring  In — Getting  the  Post-office 
to  Work  Again — Wholesale  Embalming — The  Morgue  in  the  Pres- 
byterian Church — The  Record  of  the  Unknown  Dead — A  Com- 
memorative Newspaper  Club, 358 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

A  Cross  between  a  Military  and  a  Mining  Camp — Work  of  the  Army 
Engineers — Equipping  Constables — Pressure  on  the  Telegraph  Lines 
— Photographers  not  Encouraged — Sight-seers  Turned  Away- 
Strange  Uses  for  Coffins, 370 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Sunday  Amid  the  Ruins — Services  in  One  Church  and  in  the  Open 
Air — The  Miracle  at  the  Church  of  the  Immaculate  Conception — 
Few  Women  and  Children  Seen — Disastrous  Work  of  Dynamite— 
A  Happy  Family  in  the  Wreck, 378 


Xli  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
Plans  for  the  Future  of  Johnstown  —  The  City  to  be  Rebuilt  on  a  Finer 
Scale  than  Ever  Before  —  A  Real  Estate  Boom  Looked  For  —  En- 
larging the  Conemaugh  —  Views  of  Capitalists,  ....    .....    387 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

Well-known  People  who  Narrowly  Escaped  the  Flood—  Mrs.  Hal- 
ford's  Experience  —  Mrs.  Childs  Storm  bound—  Tales  Related  by 
Travelers  —  A  Theatrical  Company's  Plight,  ..........  393 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

The  Ubiquitous  Reporter  Getting  There  —  Desperate  Traveling  through 
a  Storm-swept  Country  —  Special  Trains  and  Special  Teams  —  Climb- 
ing  Across  the  Mountains  —  Rest  for  the  Weary  in  a  Hay  Mow,  .  .  402 

CHAPTER  XXXVH. 

The  Reporter's  Life  at  Johnstown  —  Nothing  to  Eat,  but  Much  to  Do  — 
Kindly  Remembrances  of  a  Kindly  Friend  —  Driven  from  Bed  by 
Rats  —  Three  Hours  of  Sleep  in  Seventy-two  —  A  Picturesque  Group,  410 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Williamsporl's  Great  Losses  —  Flooded  with  Thirty-four  Feet  of  Water 
—  Hundreds  of  Millions  of  Feet  of  Lumber  Swept  Away  —  Loss  of 
Life  —  Incidents  of  Rescue  and  of  Death  —  The  Story  of  Garret 
Crouse  and  his  Gray  Horse,      ................     421 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

The  Juniata  Valley  Ravaged  by  the  Storm  —  Losses  at  Tyrone,  Hunt- 
ingdon and  Lewistown  —  Destruction  at  Lock  Haven  —  A  Baby's 
Voyage  Down  Stream  —  Romantic  Story  of  a  Wedding,  .....  435 

CHAPTER  XL. 

The  Floods  along  the  Potomac  —  The  National  Capital  Submerged  — 
A  Terrible  Record  in  Maryland  —  Gettysburg  a  Sufferer  —  Tidings 
of  Devastation  from  Many  Points  in  Several  States,  .......  \\\ 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


rAGE 

MAP  OF  THE  DELUGED  CONEMAUGH  DISTRICT, i 

JOHNSTOWN  AS  LEFT  BY  THE  FLOOD, 19 

RUINS  OF  JOHNSTOWN  VIEWED  FROM  PROSPECT  HILL, 37 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  RUINS,  LOOKING  UP  STONY  CREEK,  ...    55 

RUINS,  SHOWING  THE  PATH  OF  THE  FLOOD, 73 

TYPICAL  SCENE  IN  JOHNSTOWN, 91 

JOHNSTOWN— VIEW  CORNER  OF  MAIN  AND  CLINTON  STREETS,  .   .  109 

VIEW  ON  CLINTON  STREET,  JOHNSTOWN, 127 

MAIN  AND  CLINTON  STREETS,  LOOKING  SOUTHWEST,      145 

RUINS,  CORNER  OF  CLINTON  AND  MAIN  STREETS, 163 

RUINS,  FROM  SITE  OF  THE  HULBURT  HOUSE, iSl 

THE  DEBRIS  ABOVE  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  RAILROAD  BRIDGE,      .    .   .  199 

RUINS  OF  THE  CAMBRIA  IRON  WORKS, 217 

RUINS  OF  THE  CAMBRIA  IRON  COMPANY'S  STORE,    . 235 

THIRD  STREET,  WILLIAMSPORT,  PA.,  DURING  THE  FLOOD,    ....  253 
WRECK  OF  THE  IRON  BRIDGE  AT  WILLIAMSPORT,  PA., 271 

WRECK  OF  THE  LUMBER  YARDS  AT  WILLIAMSPORT,  PA., 289 

xiii 


XIV  LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


250,000,000  FEET  OF  LOGS  AFLOAT  IN  THE  SUSQUEHANNA  .....  307 

LAST  TRAINS  IN  AND  OUT  OF  HARRISBURG,       .........  325 

COLUMBIA,  TA.,  UNDER  THE  FLOOD,  ..............  343 

PENNSYLVANIA  AVENUE  AT  SIXTH  STREET,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C,    .  361 
SEVENTH  STREET,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  IN  THE  FLOOD  ......  379 

FOURTEENTH  STREET,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  IN  THE  FLOOD,     .   .   .  307 
THE  FLOOD  IN  WASHINGTON,  D.  C,  OPPOSITE  HARRIS'S  THEATRE,  .  415 


CHAPTER  I. 

Springtime  in  the  mountains.  Graceful  slopes 
and  frowning  precipices  robed  in  darkest  green  of 
hemlock  and  spruce.  Open  fields  here  and  there 
verdant  with  young  grass  and  springing  grain,  or 
moist  and  brown  beneath  the  plow  for  the  plant- 
ing time.  Hedgerow  and  underwood  fragrant 
with  honeysuckle  and  wild  blackberry  bloom ; 
violets  and  geraniums  purpling  the  forest  floor. 
Conemaugh  creek  and  Stony  creek  dash  and 
plunge  and  foam  along  their  rocky  channels  to 
where  they  unite  their  waters  and  form  the  Cone- 
maugh river,  hastening  down  to  the  Ohio,  to  the 
Mississippi,  to  the  Mexican  Gulf.  Trout  and  pick- 
erel and  bass  flash  their  bronze  and  silver  armor 
in  the  sparkling  shallows  of  the  streams  and  in 
the  sombre  and  placid  depths  of  the  lake  up 
yonder  behind  the  old  mud  dam.  Along  the  val- 
ley of  the  Conemaugh  are  ranged  villages,  towns, 
cities :  Conemaugh,  Johnstown,  Cambria,  Sang 
Hollow,  Nineveh,  and  others,  happy  and  prosper- 

15 


I  6  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  0  OD. 

ous.  Conemaugh,  nestles  at  the  very  foot  of  the 
Alleghenies ;  all  railroad  trains  eastward  bound 
stop  there  to  catch  their  breath  before  beginning 
the  long  climb  up  to  Altoona.  Sang  Hollow 
nestles  by  the  river  amid  almost  tropical  luxuri- 
ance of  vegetation  ;  yon  little  wooded  islet  in  mid- 
stream a  favorite  haunt  of  fishermen.  Nineveh  is 
rich  in  bog  iron  and  coal,  and  the  whirr  of  the 
mill-wheel  is  heard.  Johnstown,  between  the  two 
creeks  at  their  junction,  is  the  queen  city  of  the 
valley.  On  either  side  the  creek,  and  beyond,  the 
steep  mountain  sides  ;  behind,  the  narrow  valley 
reaching  twenty  miles  back  to  the  lake ;  before, 
the  Conemaugh  river  just  beginning  its  romantic 
course.  Broken  hillsides  streaked  with  torrents 
encompass  it.  Just  a  century  ago  was  Johnstown 
founded  by  one  Joseph  Johns,  a  German  settler. 
Before  then  its  beauteous  site  was  occupied  by  an 
Indian  village,  Kickenapawling.  Below  this  was 
the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Conemaugh.  Hither 
came  the  wagoners  of  the  Alleghenies,  with  huge 
wains  piled  high  with  merchandise  from  seaboard 
cities,  and  placed  it  on  flat-bottomed  boats  and 
started  it  down  the  river- way  to  the  western  mar- 
kets. The  merchandise  came  up  from  Philadel- 
phia and  Baltimore  by  river,  too ;  up  the  Susque- 
hanna  and  Juniata,  to  the  eastern  foot-hills,  and 
there  was  a  great  portage  from  the  Juniata  to  the 
Conemaugh;  the  Kittanning Trail,  then  the  Franks 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  PL  0  OD.  1 7 

town  Turnpike.  Later  came  the  great  trunk  rail- 
road whose  express  trains  now  go  roaring  down 
the  valley. 

Johnstown  is — nay,  Johnstown  was  ! — a  busy 
and  industrious  place.  The  people  of  the  town 
were  the  employees  of  the  Cambria  Iron  and  Steel 
Company,  their  families,  and  small  storekeepers. 
There  was  not  one  rich  man  in  the  town.  Three- 
quarters  of  the  28,000  people  lived  in  small  frame 
tenement  houses  on  the  flats  by  the  river  around 
the  works  of  the  Cambria  Company.  The  Cam- 
bria Company  owns  almost  all  the  land,  and  the 
business  and  professional  men  and  the  superin- 
tendents of  the  company  live  on  the  hills  away  up 
from  the  creeks.  The  creeks  become  the  Cone- 
maugh  river  right  at  the  end  of  the  town,  near 
where  the  big  stone  Pennsylvania  Railroad  bridge 
crosses  the  river. 

The  borough  of  Johnstown  was  on  the  south 
bank  of  Conemaugh  creek,  and  the  east  bank  of 
Stony  creek,  right  in  the  fork.  It  had  only  about 
a  third  of  the  population  of  the  place.  It  had 
never  been  incorporated  with  the  surrounding 
villages,  as  the  Cambria  Company,  which  owned 
most  of  the  villages  and  only  part  of  Johnstown, 
did  not  wish  to  have  them  consolidated  into  one 
city. 

Conemaugh  was  the  largest  village  on  the  creek 
between  the  lake  and  Johnstown.  It  is  often 


1 8  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

spoken  of  as  part  of  Johnstown,  though  its  rail- 
road station  is  two  or  three  miles  up  the  creek  from 
the  Johnstown  station.  The  streets  of  the  two 
towns  run  into  each  other,  and  the  space  between 
the  two  stations  is  well  built  up  along  the  creek. 
Part  of  the  Cambria  Iron  and  Steel  Company's 
works  are  at  Conemaugh,  and  five  or  six  thou- 
sand of  the  workingmen  and  their  families  lived 
there.  The  business  was  done  in  Johnstown 
borough,  where  almost  all  the  stores  of  Johns- 
town city  were. 

The  works  of  the  Cambria  Company  were 
strung  along  from  here  down  into  Johnstown 
proper.  They  were  slightly  isolated  to  prevent  a 
fire  in  one  spreading  to  the  others,  and  because 
there  was  not  much  flat  land  to  build  on.  The 
Pennsylvania  road  runs  along  the  river,  and  the 
works  were  built  beside  it. 

Between  Conemaugh  and  Johnstown  borough 
was  a  string  of  tenements  along  the  river  which 
was  called  Woodvale.  Possibly  3000  workmen 
lived  in  them.  They  were  slightly  built  of  wood, 
many  of  them  without  cellars  or  stone  foundations. 
There  were  some  substantially  built  houses  in  the 
borough  at  the  fork.  Here  the  flats  widen  out 
somewhat,  and  they  had  been  still  further  increased 
in  extent  by  the  Cambria  Company,  which  filled 
up  part  of  the  creek  beds  witfy  refuse  and  the 
ashes  from  their  works.  This  narrowed  the  beds. 


THE  JO  HNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  21 

of  the  creeks.  The  made  land  was  not  far  above 
the  water  at  ordinary  times.  Even  during  the 
ordinary  spring  floods  the  waters  rose  so  high  that 
it  flowed  into  the  cellars  of  the  tenements,  and  at 
times  into  the  works.  The  natural  land  was 
occupied  by  the  business  part  of  the  town,  where 
the  stores  were  and  the  storekeepers  had  their 
residences.  The  borough  had  a  population  of 
about  9000.  On  the  north  bank  of  the  river 
were  a  third  as  many  more  people  living  in  tene- 
ments built  and  owned  by  the  Cambria  Company. 
Further  down,  below  the  junction  of  the  two 
creeks,  along  both  banks  of  the  Conemaugh 
river,  were  about  4000  employees  of  the  Cam- 
bria Company  and  their  families.  The  place  where 
they  lived  was  called  Cambria  or  Cambria  City. 
All  these  villages  and  boroughs  made  up  what  is 
.known  as  the  city  of  Johnstown. 

The  Cambria  Company  employed  about  4000 
men  in  its  works  and  mines.  Besides  these  were 
some  railroad  shops,  planing  mills,  flour  mills, 
several  banks  and  newspapers.  Only  the  men 
employed  by  the  Cambria  Company  and  their 
families  lived  on  the  flats  and  made  ground.  The 
Cambria  Company  owned  all  this  land,  and  made 
it  a  rule  not  to  sell  it,  but  to  lease  it.  The  com- 
pany put  rows  of  two-story  frame  tenements  close 
together,  on  their  land  close  to  the  works,  the 
cheaper  class  of  tenements  in  solid  blocks,  to 


2  2  THE  JOHNSTO  VVN  FL  OOD. 

cheapen  their  construction.  The  better  tenements 
were  separate  buildings,  with  two  families  to  the 
house.  The  tenements  rented  for  from  $5  to  $15 
a  month,  and  cost  possibly,  on  the  average,  $500 
to  build.  They  were  all  of  wood,  many  of  them 
without  cellars,  and  were  built  as  cheaply  as  pos- 
sible. The  timbers  were  mostly  pine,  light  and 
inflammable.  It  was  not  an  uncommon  thing  for 
a  fire  to  break  out  and  to  burn  one  or  two  rows 
of  tenements.  But  the  different  rows  were  not 
closely  bunched,  but  were  sprinkled  around  in 
patches  near  the  separate  works,  and  it  was 
cheaper  for  the  company  to  rebuild  occasionally 
than  to  put  up  brick  houses. 

Besides  owning  the  flats,  the  Cambria  Company 
owned  the  surrounding  hills.  In  one  of  the  hills 
is  limestone,  in  another  coal,  and  there  is  iron  ore 
not  far  away.  The  company  has  narrow-gauge 
roads  running  from  its  mines  down  to  the  works. 
The  city  was  at  the  foot  of  these  three  hills, 
which  meet  in  a  double  V  shape.  Conemaugh 
creek  flowing  down  one  and  Stony  creek  flowing 
down  the  other.  The  hills  are  not  so  far  distant 
that  a  man  with  a  rifle  on  any  one  could  not  shoot 
to  either  of  the  others.  They  are  several  hundred 
feet  high  and  so  steep  that  roads  run  up  them  by 
a  series  of  zigzag  grades.  Few  people  live  on 
these  hills  except  on  a  small  rise  of  ground  across 
the  river  from  Johnstown.  In  some  places  the 


THE  JO  HNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  2$ 

company  has  leased  the  land  for  dwelling  houses, 
but  it  retains  the  ownership  of  the  land  and  of  the 
coal,  iron  and  limestone  in  it.  The  flats  having 

o 

all  been  occupied,  the  company  in  recent  years 
had  put  up  some  tenements  of  a  better  class  on 
the  north  bank  of  the  river,  higher  up  than  the 
flood  reached.  The  business  part  of  the  town 
also  was  higher  up  than  the  works  and  the  tene- 
ments of  the  company. 

In  normal  times  the  river  is  but  a  few  hundred 
feet  wide.  The  bottom  is  stony.  The  current  is 
so  fast  that  there  is  little  deposit  along  the  bank. 
It  is  navigable  at  no  time,  though  in  the  spring  a 
good  canoeist  might  go  down  it  if  he  could  steer 
clear  of  the  rocks.  In  the  summer  the  volume  of 
water  diminishes  so  much  that  a  boy  with  a  pair 
of  rubber  boots  on  can  wade  across  without  get- 
ting his  feet  wet,  and  there  have  been  times  when 
a  good  jumper  could  cross  the  river  on  the  dry 
stones.  Below  Johnstown,  after  Stony  creek  has 
joined  the  Conemaugh  creek,  the  volume  of  water 
increases,  but  the  Conemaugh  throughout  its 
whole  length  is  nothing  but  a  mountain  stream, 
dry  in  the  summer  and  roaring  in  the  spring.  It 
runs  down  into  the  Kiskiminitas  river  and  into  the 
Allegheny  river,  and  then  on  to  Pittsburgh.  It  is 
over  100  miles  from  Johnstown  to  Pittsburgh  fol- 
lowing the  windings  of  the  river,  twice  as  far  as 
the  straight  line. 


24  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

Johnstown  was  one  of  the  busiest  towns  of  its 
size  in  the  State.  Its  tonnage  over  the  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Baltimore  and  Ohio  roads  was  larger 
than  the  tonnage  of  many  cities  three  times  its 
size.  The  Iron  and  Steel  Company  is  one  of  the 
largest  iron  and  steel  corporations  in  the  world. 
It  had  its  main  rolling  mills,  Bessemer  steel  works, 
and  wire  works  at  Johnstown,  though  it  also  has 
works  in  other  places,  and  owns  ore  and  coal 
mines  and  leases  in  the  South,  in  Michigan,  and  in 
Spain,  besides  its  Pennsylvania  works.  It  had  in 
Johnstown  and  the  surrounding  villages  4000  or 
5000  men  usually  at  work.  In  flush  times  it  has 
employed  more  than  6000.  So  important  was  the 
town  from  a  railroad  point  of  view  that  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  ran  a  branch  from  Rockwood,  on 
its  main  line  to  Pittsburgh,  up  to  Johnstown,  forty- 
five  miles.  It  was  one  of  the  main  freight  stations 
on  the  Pennsylvania  road,  though  the  passenger 
business  was  so  small  in  proportion  that  some  ex- 
press trains  do  not  stop  there.  The  Pennsylvania 
road  recently  put  up  a  large  brick  station,  which 
was  one  of  the  few  brick  buildings  on  the  flats. 
Some  of  the  Cambria  Company's  offices  were  also 
of  brick,  and  there  "was  a  brick  lodging  house  for 
young  men  in  the  employ  of  the  company.  The 
Pennsylvania  road  had  repair  shops  there,  which 
employed  a  few  hundred  men,  and  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  branch  had  some  smaller  shops. 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD.  2$ 

Johnstown  had  several  Catholic  and  Presbyte- 
rian, Methodist,  Baptist,  and  Lutheran  churches. 
It  had  several  daily  and  weekly  papers.  The  chief 
were  the  Tribune,  the  Democrat,  and  the  Freie 
Presse. 

The  Cambria  Iron  Works,  the  great  industry  of 
Johnstown,  originated  in  a  few  widely  separated 
charcoal  furnaces  built  by  pioneer  iron  workers  in 
the  early  years  of  the  century.  As  early  as  1803 
General  Arthur  St.  Clair  engaged  in  the  iron 
business,  and  erected  the  Hermitage  furnace  about 
sixteen  miles  from  the  present  site  of  Johnstown. 
In  1809  the  working  of  ores  was  begun  near 
Johnstown.  These  were  primitive  furnaces,  where 
charcoal  was  the  only  fuel  employed,  and  the  raw 
material  and  product  were  transported  entirely  on 
wagons,  but  they  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
manufacture  of  iron  in  this  country. 

The  Cambria  Iron  Company  was  chartered 
under  the  general  law  in  1852,  for  the  operation  of 
four  old-fashioned  charcoal  furnaces  in  and  near 
Johnstown,  which  was  then  a  village  of  1300  in- 
habitants, to  which  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  had 
just  been  extended.  In  1853  the  construction  of 
four  coke  furnaces  was  begun,  but  it  was  two 
years  before  the  first  was  finished.  England  was 
then  shipping  rails  into  this  country  under  a  low 
duty,  and  the  iron  industry  here  was  struggling 
for  existence.  The  company  at  Johnstown  was 


2 6  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD. 

aided  by  a  number  of  Philadelphia  merchants,  but 
was  unable  to  continue  in  business,  and  suspended 
in  1854.  At  a  meeting  of  the  creditors  in  Phila- 
delphia soon  afterward  a  committee  was  appointed, 
with  Daniel  J.  Morrell  as  Chairman,  to  visit  the 
works  at  Johnstown  and  recommend  the  best 
means,  if  any,  to  save  themselves  from  loss.  In 
his  report,  Mr.  Morrell  strongly  urged  the  Phila- 
delphia creditors  to  invest  more  money  and  con- 
tinue the  business.  They  did  so,  and  Matthew 
Newkirk  was  made  President  of  the  company. 
The  company  again  failed  in  1855,  an<^  Mr.  Mor- 
rell then  associated  a  number  of  gentlemen  with 
him,  and  formed  the  firm  of  Wood,  Morrell  & 
Co.,  leasing  the  works  for  seven  years.  The  year 

1856  was  one  of  great  financial  depression,  and 

1857  was  worse,  and,  as  a  further  discouragement, 
the  large  furnace  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  June, 
1857.     In   one   week,  however,  the  works  were 
in  operation  again,  and  a  brick  building  was  soon 
constructed.    When  the  war  came,  and  with  it  the 
Morrill  tariff  of  1861,  a  broader  field  was  opened 
up,  and  in  1862  the  present  company  was  formed. 

The  years  following  the  close  of  the  war  brought 
about  an  unprecedented  revival  in  railroad  build- 
ing. In  1864  there  were  but  33,908  miles  of  rail- 
road in  the  United  States,  while  in  1874  there  were 
72,741  miles,  or  more  than  double.  There  was  a 
great  demand  for  English  steel  rails,  which  ad- 


THE  JOHNSTO VVN  FLOOD.  2 7 

vanced  to  $170  per  ton.  Congress  imposed  a 
duty  of  $28  a  ton  on  foreign  rails,  and  encour- 
aged American  manufacturers  to  go  into  the  busi- 
ness. The  Cambria  Company  began  the  erection 
of  Bessemer  steel  works  in  1869,  and  sold  the 
first  steel  rails  in  1871,  at  $104  a  ton. 

The  company  had  700  dwelling-houses,  rented 
to  employees.  The  works  and  rolling  mills  of  the 
company  were  situated  upon  what  was  originally 
a  river  flat,  where  the  valley  of  the  Conemaugh 
expanded  somewhat,  just  below  Johnstown,  and 
now  part  of  Millville.  The  Johnstown  furnaces, 
Nos.  i,  2V  3  and  4,  formed  one  complete  plant, 
with  stacks  75  feet  high  and  16  feet  in  diameter  at 
the  base.  Steam  was  generated  in  forty  boilers 
fired  by  furnace  gas,  for  eight  vertical,  direct-acting 
blowing  engines.  Nos.  5  and  6  blast  furnaces 
formed  together  a  second  plant,  with  stacks  75 
feet  high  and  19  feet  in  diameter.  The  Bessemer 
plant  was  the  sixth  started  in  the  United  States 
(July,  1871).  The  main  building  was  102  feet  in 
width  by  165  feet  in  length.  The  cupolas  were 
six  in  number.  Blast  was  supplied  from  eight 
Baker  rotary  pressure  blowers,  driven  by  engines 
16x24  inches  at  110  revolutions  per  minute. 
The  Bessemer  works  were  supplied  with  steam  by 
a  battery  of  twenty-one  tubular  boilers.  The  best 
average,  although  not  the  very  highest  work 
done  in  the  Bessemer  department,  was  103  heats 


28  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD. 


of  Sy£  tons  each  for  each  twenty-four  hours.  The 
best  weekly  record  reached  4847  tons  of  ingots, 
and  the  best  monthly  record  20,304  tons.  The 
best  daily  output  was  900  tons  of  ingots.  All 
grades  of  steel  were  made  in  the  converters,  from 
the  softest  wire  and  bridge  stock  to  spring  stock. 
The  open-hearth  building,  i2ox  155  feet,  contain- 
ing three  Pernot  revolving  hearth  furnaces  of  fif- 
teen tons  capacity  each,  supplied  with  natural  gas. 
The  rolling  mill  was  100  feet  in  width  by  1900 
feet  in  length,  and  contained  a  24-inch  train  of 
two  stands  of  three-high  rolls,  and  a  ten-ton  trav- 
eling crane  for  changing  rolls.  The  product  of 
the  mill  was  80,000  pounds  per  turn.  The  bolt 
and  nut  works  produced  1000  kegs  of  finished 
track  bolts  per  month,  besides  machine  bolts. 
The  capacity  of  the  axle  shop  was  100  finished 
steel  axles  per  day.  The  "  Gautier  steel  depart- 
ment" consisted  of  a  brick  building  200  x  50  feet, 
where  the  wire  was  annealed,  drawn  and  finished  ; 
a  brick  warehouse  373x43  feet,  many  shops, 
offices,  etc.  ;  the  barb-wire  mill,  50  x  250  feet,  where 
the  celebrated  Cambria  link  barb  wire  was  made, 
and  the  main  merchant  mill,  725  x  250  feet.  These 
mills  produced  wire,  shafting,  springs,  plough- 
shares, rake  and  harrow  teeth,  and  other  kinds  of 
agricultural  implement  steel.  In  1887  they  pro- 
duced 50,000  tons  of  this  material,  which  was 
marketed  mainly  in  the  Western  States.  Grouped 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD.  2  Q 

with  the  principal  mills  thus  described  were  the 
foundries,  pattern  and  other  shops,  draughting 
offices  and  time  offices,  etc.,  all-  structures  of  a 
firm  and  substantial  character. 

The  company  operated  about  thirty-five  miles  of 
railroad  tracks,  employing  in  this  service  twenty- 
four  locomotives,  and  owned  1500  cars.  To  the 
large  bodies  of  mountain  land  connected  with  the 
old  charcoal  furnaces  additions  have  been  made  of 
ores  and  coking  coals,  and  the  company  now 
owns  in  fee  simple  54,423  acres  of  mineral  lands. 
It  has  600  beehive  coke  ovens  in  the  Connellsville 
district,  and  the  coal  producing  capacity  of  the 
mines  in  Pennsylvania  owned  by  the  company  is 
815,000  tons  per  year. 

In  continuation  of  the  policy  of  Daniel  J.  Mor- 
rell,  the  Cambria  Iron  Company  has  done  a  great 
deal  for  its  employees.  The  Cambria  Library  was 
erected  by  the  Iron  Company  and  presented  to  the 
town.  The  building  was  43  x  68*/£  feet,  and  con- 
tained a  library  of  6914  volumes.  It  contained  a 
large  and  valuable  collection  of  reports  of  the 
United  States  and  the  State,  and  it  is  feared  that 
they  have  been  greatly  damaged.  The  Cambria 
Mutual  Benefit  Association  is  composed  of  em- 
ployees of  the  company,  and  is  supported  by  it.  The 
employees  receive  benefits  when  sick  or  injured, 
and  in  case  of  death  their  families  are  provided 
for.  The  Board  of  Directors  of  this  association 


30  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD. 

also  controls  the  Cambria  Hospital,  which  was 
erected  by  the  Iron  Company  in  1866,  on  Prospect 
Hill,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  town.  The  com- 
pany also  maintained  a  club  house,  and  a  store 
which  was  patronized  by  others,  as  well  as  by  its 
employees. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Twenty  miles  up  Conemaugh  creek,  beyond 
the  workingmen's  villages  of  South  Fork  and 
Mineral  Point,  was  Conemaugh  lake.  It  was  a 
part  of  the  old  and  long  disused  Pennsylvania 
Canal  system.  At  the  head  of  Conemaugh  creek, 
back  among  the  hills,  three  hundred  feet  or  more 
above  the  level  of  Johnstown  streets,  was  a  small, 
natural  lake.  When  the  canal  was  building,  the 
engineers  took  this  lake  to  supply  the  western 
division  of  the  canal  which  ran  from  there  to  Pitts- 
burgh. The  Eastern  division  ended  at  Hollidays- 
burgh  east  of  the  summit  of  the  Alleghanies, 
where  there  was  a  similar  reservoir.  Between  the 
two  was  the  old  Portage  road,  one  of  the  first 
railroads  constructed  in  the  State.  The  canal  was 
abandoned  some  years  ago,  as  the  Pennsylvania 
road  destroyed  its  traffic.  The  Pennsylvania 
Company  got  a  grant  of  the  canal  from  the  State. 
Some  years  after  the  canal  was  abandoned  the 
Hollidaysburgh  reservoir  was  torn  down,  the 

3* 


3 2  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

water  gradually  escaping  into  the  Frankstown 
branch  of  the  Juniata  river.  The  people  of  the 
neighborhood  objected  to  the  existence  of  the 
reservoir  after  the  canal  was  abandoned,  as  little 
attc  ntion  was  paid  to  the  structure,  and  the  farmers 
in  the  valley  below  feared  that  the  dam  would 
break  and  drown  them.  The  water  was  all  let  out 
of  that  reservoir  about  three  years  ago. 

The  dam  above  Johnstown  greatly  increased 
the  small  natural  lake  there.  It  was  a  pleasant 
drive  from  Johnstown  to  the  reservoir.  Boating 
and  fishing  parties  often  went  out  there.  Near 
the  reservoir  is  Cresson,  a  summer  resort  owned 
by  the  Pennsylvania  road.  Excursion  parties  are 
made  up  in  the  summer  time  by  the  Pennsylvania 
Company,  and  special  trains  are  run  for  them  from 
various  points  to  Cresson.  A  club  called  the 
South  Fork  Fishing  and  Hunting  Club  was  organ- 
ized some  years  ago,  and  got  the  use  of  the  lake 
from  the  Pennsylvania  Company.  Most  of  the 
members  of  the  club  live  in  Pittsburgh,  and  are 
prominent  iron  and  coal  men.  Besides  them 
there  are  some  of  the  officials  of  the  Pennsylvania 
road  among  the  members.  They  increased  the 
size  of  the  dam  until  it  was  not  far  from  a  hundred 
feet  in  height,  and  its  entire  length,  from  side  to 
side  at  the  top,  was  not  far  from  nine  hundred  feet. 
This  increased  the  size  of  the  lake  to  three  miles 
in  length  and  a  mile  and  a  quarter  in  width.  It 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  00  D.  33 

was  an  irregular  oval  in  shape.  The  volume  of 
water  in  it  depended  on  the  time  of  the  year. 

Some  of  the  people  of  Johnstown  had  thought 
for  years  that  the  dam  might  break,  but  they  did 
not  think  that  its  breaking  would  do  more  than 
flood  the  flats  and  damage  the  works  of  the  Cam- 
bria Company. 

When  the  Hunting  and  Fishing  Club  bought 
the  site  of  the  old  reservoir  a  section  of  1 50  feet 
had  been  washed  out  of  the  middle.  This  was 
rebuilt  at  an  expense  of  $17,000  and  the  work 
was  thought  to  be  very  strong.  At  the  base  it 
was  380  feet  thick  and  gradually  tapered  until  at 
the  top  it  was  about  35  feet  thick.  It  was  con- 
sidered amply  secure,  and  such  faith  had  the  mem- 
bers of  the  club  in  its  stability  that  the  top  of  the 
dam  was  utilized  as  a  driveway.  It  took  two  years 
to  complete  the  work,  men  being  engaged  from 
'79  to  '8 1.  While  it  was  under  process  of  con- 
struction the  residents  of  Johnstown  expressed 
some  fears  as  to  the  solidity  of  the  work,  and 
requested  that  it  be  examined  by  experts.  An 
engineer  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Works,  secured 
through  Mr.  Morrell,  of  that  institution,  one  pro- 
vided by  Mr.  Pitcairn,  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road, and  Nathan  McDowell,  chosen  by  the  club 
itself,  made  a  thorough  examination.  They  pro- 
nounced the  structure  perfectly  safe,  but  suggested 
some  precautionary  measures  as  to  the  stopping 


3  4  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FL  O  OD. 

of  leaks,  that  were  faithfully  carried  out.  The 
members  of  the  club  themselves  discovered  that 
the  sewer  that  carried  away  the  surplus  or  over- 
flow from  the  lake  was  not  large  enough  in  times 
of  storm.  So  five  feet  of  solid  rock  were  cut 
away  in  order  to  increase  the  mouth  of  the  lake. 
Usually  the  surface  of  the  water  was  15  feet  below 
the  top  of  the  dam,  and  never  in  recent  years  did 
it  rise  to  more  than  eight  feet.  In  1881,  when 
work  was  going  on,  a  sudden  rise  occurred,  and 
then  the  water  threatened  to  do  what  it  did  on 
this  occasion.  The  workmen  hastened  to  the 
scene  and  piled  debris  of  all  sorts  on  the  top  and 
thus  prevented  a  washout. 

For  more  than  a  year  there  had  been  fears  of  a 
disaster.  The  foundations  of  the  dam  at  South 
Fork  were  considered  shaky  early  in  1888,  and 
many  increasing  leakages  were  reported  from 
time  to  time. 

"We  were  afraid  of  that  lake,"  said  a  gentle- 
man who  had  lived  in  Johnstown  for  years  ;  "  We 
were  afraid  of  that  lake  seven  years  ago.  No 
one  could  see  the  immense  height  to  which  that 
artificial  dam  had  been  built  without  fearing  the 
tremendous  power  of  the  water  behind  it.  The 
dam  must  have  had  a  sheer  height  of  100  feet, 
thus  forcing  the  water  that  high  above  its  natural 
bed,  and  making  a  lake  at  least  three  miles  long 
and  a  mile  wide,  out  of  what  could  scarcely  be 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  35 

called  a  pond.  I  doubt  if  there  is  a  man  or  woman 
in  Johnstown  who  at  some  time  or  other  had  not 
feared  and  spoken  of  the  terrible  disaster  that  has 
now  come. 

"  People  wondered,  and  asked  why  the  dam 
was  not  strengthened,  as  it  certainly  had  become 
weak ;  but  nothing  was  done,  and  by  and  by  they 
talked  less  and  less  about  it,  as  nothing  happened, 
though  now  and  then  some  would  shake  their 
heads  as  if  conscious  the  fearful  day  would  come 
some  time  when  their  worst  fears  would  be  tran- 
scended by  the  horror  of  the  actual  occurrence." 

There  is  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  but  that  the 
citizens  of  Cambria  County  frequently  complained, 
and  that  at  the  time  the  dam  was  constructed  a 
vigorous  effort  was  made  to  put  a  stop  to  the  work. 
It  is  true  that  the  leader  in  this  movement  was  not 
a  citizen  of  Johnstown,  but  he  was  and  is  a  large 
mine  owner  in  Cambria  County.  His  mine  ad- 
joins the  reservoir  property.  He  was  frequently 
on  the  spot,  and  his  own  engineer  inspected  the 
work.  He  says  the  embankment  was  principally 
of  shale  and  clay,  and  that  straw  was  used  to  stop 
the  leaking  of  water  while  the  work  was  going  on. 
He  called  on  the  sheriff  of  Cambria  County  and 
told  him  it  was  his  duty  to  apply  to  the  court  for 
an  injunction.  The  sheriff  promised  to  give  the 
matter  his  attention,  but,  instead  of  going  before 
court,  went  to  the  Cambria  Company  for  consul- 


36  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

tation.  An  employee  was  sent  up  to  make  an  in- 
spection, and  as  his  report  was  favorable  to  the  res- 
ervoir work  the  sheriff  went  no  further.  But  the 
gentleman  referred  to  said  that  he  had  not  failed 
to  make  public  his  protest  at  the  time  and  to  re- 
new it  frequently.  This  recommendation  for  an 
injunction  and  protest  were  spoken  of  by  citizens 
of  Altoona  as  a  hackneyed  subject. 

Confirmation  has  certainly  been  had  at  South 
Fork,  Conemaugh,  Millvale  and  Johnstown.  The 
rumor  of  an  expected  break  was  prevalent  at  these 
places,  but  citizens  remarked  that  the  rumor  was  a 
familiar  incident  of  the  annual  freshets.  It  was 
the  old  classic  story  of  "  Wolf,  wolf."  They  gave 
up  the  first  floors  to  the  water  and  retired  up- 
stairs to  wait  until  the  river  should  recede,  as  they 
had  done  often  before,  scouting  the  oft-told  story 
of  the  breaking  of  the  reservoir. 

An  interesting  story,  involving  the  construction 
and  history  of  the  Conemaugh  lake  dam,  was  related 
by  J.  B.  Montgomery,  who  formerly  lived  in  West- 
ern Pennsylvania,  and  is  now  well  known  in  the 
West  as  a  railroad  contractor.  "  The  dam,"  said 
he,  "  was  built  about  thirty-five  years  ago  by  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  as  a  feeder  for  the  western 
division  of  the  Pennsylvania  Canal.  The  plans ' 
and  specifications  for  the  dam  were  furnished  by 
the  Chief  Engineer  of  the  State.  I  am  not  sure, 
but  it  is  my  impression,  that  Colonel  William  Mil- 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  39 

nor  Roberts  held  the  office  at  the  time.  Colonel 
Roberts  was  one  of  the  most  famous  engineers  in 
the  country.  He  died  several  years  ago  in  Chili. 
The  contractors  for  the  construction  of  the  darn 
were  General  J.  K.  Moorhead  and  Judge  H.  B. 
Packer,  of  Williamsport,  a  brother  of  Governor 
Packer.  General  Moorhead  had  built  many  dams 
before  this  on  the  rivers  of  Pennsylvania,  and  his 
work  was  always  known  to  be  of  the  very  best. 
In  this  case,  however,  all  that  he  had  to  do  was  to 
build  the  dam  according  to  the  specifications  fur- 
nished by  the  State.  The  dam  was  built  of  stone 
and  wood  throughout,  and  was  of  particularly 
solid  construction.  There  is  no  significance  in  the 
discovery  of  straw  and  dirt  among  the  ruins  of 
the  dam.  Both  are  freely  used  when  dams  are 
being  built,  to  stop  the  numerous  leaks. 

"  The  dam  had  three  waste-gates  at  the  bottom, 
so  arranged  that  they  could  be  raised  when  there 
was  too  much  water  in  the  lake,  and  permit  -the 
escape  of  the  surplus.  These  gates  were  in  big 
stone  arches,  through  which  the  water  passed  to 
the  canal  when  the  lake  was  used  as  a  feeder. 

"In  1859  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company 
purchased  the  canal  from  the  State,  and  the  clam 
and  lake  went  into  the  possession  of  that  company. 
Shortly  afterward  the  Pennsylvania  Company 
abandoned  the  western  division  of  the  canal,  and 
the  dam  became  useless  as  a  feeder.  For  twenty- 
3 


4O  THE  JOHNSTOWN  PLOOD. 

five  years  the  lake  was  used  only  as  a  fish-pond, 
and  the  dam  and  the  gates  were  forgotten.  Five 
years  ago  the  lake  was  leased  to  a  number  of 
Pittsburgh  men,  who  stocked  it  with  bass,  trout, 
and  other  game  fish.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the 
waste-gates  had  not  been  opened  for  a  great  many 
years.  If  this  is  so,  no  wonder  the  dam  broke. 
Naturally  the  fishermen  did  not  want  to  open  the 
gates  after  the  lake  was  stocked,  for  the  fish  would 
have  run  out.  A  sluiceway  should  have  been 
built  on  the  side  of  the  dam,  so  that  when  the  water 
reached  a  certain  height  the  surplus  could  escape. 
The  dam  was  not  built  with  the  intention  that  the 
water  should  flow  over  the  top  of  it  under  any 
circumstances,  and  if  allowed  to  escape  in  that 
way  the  water  was  bound  to  undermine  it  in  a 
short  time.  With  a  dam  the  height  of  this  the 
pressure  of  a  quantity  of  water  great  enough  to 
overflow  it  must  be  something  tremendous. 

"  If  it  is  true  that  the  waste-gates  were  never 
opened  after  the  Pittsburgh  men  had  leased  the 
lake,  the  explanation  of  the-^ bursting  of  the  dam 
is  to  be  found  right  there.  It  may  be  that  the 
dam  had  not  been  looked  after  and  strengthened 
of  late  years,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  weakened 
in  the  period  of  twenty-five  years  during  which 
the  lake  was  not  used.  After  the  construction  of 
the  dam  the  lake  was  called  the  Western  Reservoir. 
The  south  fork  of  the  Conemaugh,  which  fed  the 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  4 1 

4ake,  is  a  little  stream  not  over  ten  feet  wide,  but 
even  when  there  were  no  unusual  storms  it  carried 
enough  water  to  fill  the  lake  full  within  a  year, 
showing  how  important  it  was  that  the  gates 
should  be  opened  occasionally  to  run  off  the 
surplus." 

Mr.  Montgomery  was  one  of  a  party  of  engi- 
neers who  inspected  the  dam  when  it  was  leased 
by  the  Pennsylvania  Company,  five  years  ago. 
It  then  needed  repairs,  but  was  in  a  perfectly  safe 
condition  if  the  water  was  not  allowed  to  flow 
over  it. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Friday,  May  3ist,  1889.  The  day  before  had 
been  a  solemn  holiday.  In  every  village  veterans 
of  the  War  for  the  Union  had  gathered  ;  in  every 
cemetery  flowers  had  been  strewn  upon  the  grave- 
mounds  of  the  heroic  dead.  Now  the  people 
were  resuming  the  every-day  toil.  The  weather 
was  rainy.  It  had  been  wet  for  some  days.  Stony 
Creek  and  Conemaugh  were  turbid  and  noisy. 
The  little  South  Fork,  which  ran  into  the  upper 
end  of  the  lake,  was  swollen  into  a  raging  tor- 
rent. The  lake  was  higher  than  usual ;  higher 
than  ever.  But  the  valley  below  lay  in  fancied 
security,  and  all  the  varied  activities  of  life  pur- 
sued their  wonted  round. 

Friday,  May  3ist,  1889.  Record  that  awful 
date  in  characters  of  funereal  hue.  It  was  a  dark 
and  stormy  day,  and  amid  the  darkness  and  the 
storm  the  angel  of  death  spread  his  wings  over 
the  fated  valley,  unseen,  unknown.  Midday 
comes.  Disquieting  rumors  rush  down  the  val- 
ley. There  is  a  roar  of  an  approaching  storm — 
42 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  43 

approaching  doom  !  The  water  swiftly  rises. 
A  horseman  thunders  down  the  valley:  "To  the 
hills,  for  God's  sake !  To  the  hills,  for  your 
lives  !  "  They  stare  at  him  as  at  a  madman,  and 
their  hesitating  feet  linger  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  and  the  shadow  swiftly  darkens, 
and  the  everlasting  hills  veil  their  faces  with  rain 
and  mist  before  the  scene  that  greets  them. 

This  is  what  happened :  — 

The  heavy  rainfall  raised  the  lake  until  its 
water  began  to  pour  over  the  top  of  the  dam. 
The  dam  itself — wretchedly  built  of  mud  and 
boulders — saturated  through  and  through,  began 
to  leak  copiously  here  and  there  Each  watery 
sapper  and  miner  burrowed  on,  followers  swiftly 
enlarging  the  murderous  tunnels.  The  whole 
mass  became  honeycombed.  And  still  the  rain 
poured  down,  and  still  the  South  Fork  and  a 
hundred  minor  streams  sent  in  their  swelling 
floods,  until,  with  a  roar  like  that  of  the  opening 
gates  of  the  Inferno  belching  forth  the  legions  of 
the  damned,  the  wall  gave  way,  and  with  the  rush 
of  a  famished  tiger  into  a  sheepfold,  the  whirlwind 
of  water  swept  down  the  valley  on  its  errand  of 
destruction — 

"  And  like  a  horse  unbroken, 

When  first  he  feels  the  rein, 

The  furious  river  struggled  hard, 

And  tossed  his  tawny  mane, 


44  7  HE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

And  burst  the  curb,  and  bounded, 

Rejoicing  to  be  free, 
And,  whirling  down  in  mad  career, 
Battlement  and  plank  and  pier, 

Rushed  headlong  to  the  sea !  " 

According  to  the  statements  of  people  who 
lived  in  Johnstown  and  other  towns  on  the  line  of 
the  river,  ample  time  was  given  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Johnstown  by  the  railroad  officials  and  by  other 
gentlemen  of  standing  and  reputation.  In  hun- 
dreds of  cases  this  warning  was  utterly  disre- 
garded, and  those  who  heeded  it  early  in  the  day 
were  looked  upon  as  cowards,  and  many  jeers 
were  uttered  by  lips  that  now  are  cold.  The 
people  of  Johnstown  also  had  a  special  warning  in 
the  fact  that  the  dam  in  Stony  Creek,  just  above 
the  town,  broke  about  noon,  and  thousands  of  feet 
of  lumber  passed  down  the  river.  Yet  they  hesi- 
tated, and  even  when  the  wall  of  water,  almost 
forty  feet  high,  was  at  their  doors,  one  man  is  said 
by  a  survivor  to  have  told  his  family  that  the  stream 
would  not  rise  very  high. 

How  sudden  the  calamity  is  illustrated  by  an 
incident  which  Mr.  Bender,  the  night  chief  opera- 
tor of  the  Western  Union  in  Pittsburgh,  relates: 
"At  3  o'clock  that  Friday  afternoon,"  said  he,  ''the 
girl  operator  at  Johnstown  was  cheerfully  ticking 
away  that  she  had  to  abandon  the  office  on  the 
first  floor,  because  the  water  was  three  feet  deep 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  ODD.  45 

there.  She  said  she  was  telegraphing  from  the 
second  story  and  the  water  was  gaining  steadily. 
She  was  frightened,  and  said  many  houses  were 
flooded.  This  was  evidently  before  the  dam  broke, 
for  our  man  here  said 'something  encouraging  to 
her,  and  she  was  talking  back  a-s  only  a  cheerful 
girl  operator  can,  when  the  receiver's  skilled  ear 
caught  a  sound  on  the  wire  made  by  no  human 
hand,  which  told  him  that  the  wires  had  grounded, 
or  that  the  house  had  been  swept  away  in  the 
flood  from  the  lake,  no  one  knows  which  now. 
At  3  o'clock  the  girl  was  there,  and  at  3.07  we 
might  as  well  have  asked  the  grave  to  answer  us." 
The  water  passed  over  the  dam  about  a  foot 
above  its  top,  beginning  at  about  half-past  2. 
Whatever  happened  in  the  way  of  a  cloud-burst 
took  place  in  the  night.  There  had  been  little 
rain  up  to  dark.  When  the  workmen  woke  in  the 
morning  the  lake  was  full,  and  rising  at  the  rate 
of  a  foot  an  hour.  It  kept  on  rising  until  2  p.  M., 
when  it  began  breaking  over  the  dam  and  under- 
mining it.  Men  were  sent  three  or  four  times 
during  the  day  to  warn  people  below  of  their  dan- 
ger. When  the  final  break  came  at  3  o'clock, 
there  was  a  sound  like  tremendous  and  continued 
peals  of  thunder.  Trees,  rocks  and  earth  shot  up 
into  mid-air  in  great  columns  and  then  started 
down  the  ravine.  A  farmer  who  escaped  said 
that  the  water  did  not  come  down  like  a  wave,  but 


46  THE  JOHNSTQ  WN  FL  O OD. 

jumped  on  his  house  and  beat  it  to  fragments  in 
an  instant.  He  was  safe  on  the  hillside,  but  his 
wife  and  two  children  were  killed. 

Herbert  Webber,  who  was  employed  by  the 
Sportsmen's  Club  at  the  lake,  tells  that  for  three 
days  previous  to  the  final  outburst,  the  water  of 
the  lake  forced  itself  out  through  the  interstices 

o 

of  the  masonry,  so  that  the  front  of  the  dam  re- 
sembled a  large  watering  pot.  The  force  of  the 
water  was  so  great  that  one  of  these  jets  squirted 
full  thirty'  feet  horizontally  from  the  stone  wall. 
All  this  time,  too,  the  feeders  of  the  lake,  particu- 
larly three  of  them,  more  nearly  resembled  tor- 
rents than  mountain  streams,  and  were  supplying 
the  dammed  up  body  of  water  with  quite  3,000,- 
ooo  gallons  of  water  hourly. 

At  1 1  o'clock  that  Friday  morning,  Webber 
says  he  was  attending  to  a  camp  about  a  mile 
back  from  the  dam,  when  he  noticed  that  the  sur- 
face of  the  lake  seemed  to  be  lowering.  He 
doubted  his  eyes,  and  made  a  mark  on  the  shore, 
and  then  found  that  his  suspicions  were  undoubt- 
edly well  founded.  He  ran  across  the  country  to  the 
dam,  and  there  saw,  he  declares,  the  water  of  the 
lake  welling  out  from  beneath  the  foundation 
stones  of  the  dam.  Absolutely  helpless,  he  was 
compelled  to  stand  there  and  watch  the  gradual 
development  of  what  was  to  be  the  most  disastrous 
flood  of  this  continent. 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD,  47 

According  to  his  reckoning  it  was  2.45  when 
the  stones  in  the  centre  of  the  dam  began  to  sink 
because  of  the  undermining,  and  within  eight  min- 
utes a  gap  of  twenty  feet  was  made  in  the  lower 
half  of  the  wall  face,  through  which  the  water 
poured  as  though  forced  by  machinery  of  stu- 
pendous power.  By  3  o'clock  the  toppling 
masonry,  which  before  had  partaken  somewhat 
of  the  form  of  an  arch,  fell  in,  and  then  the  re- 
mainder of  the  wall  opened  outward  like  twin  gates, 
and  the  great  storage  lake  was  foaming  and 
thundering  down  the  valley  of  the  Conemaugh. 

Webber  became  so  awestruck  at  the  catastrophe 
that  he  declares  he  was  unable  to  leave  the  spot 
until  the  lake  had  fallen  so  low  that  it  showed 
bottom  fifty  feet  below  him.  How  long  a  time 
elapsed  he  says  he  does  not  know  before  he  recov- 
ered sufficient  power  of  observation  to  notice  this, 
but  he  does  not  think  that  more  than  five  minutes 
passed.  Webber  says  that  had  the  dam  been  re- 
paired after  the  spring  freshet  of  1888  the  disaster 
would  not  have  occurred.  Had  it  been  given  ordi- 
nary attention  in  the  spring  of  1887  the  probabili- 
ties are  that  thousands  of  lives  would  have  been 
saved. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  solid  piece  of  ground, 
thirty-five  feet  wide  and  over  one  hundred  feet 
high,  and  then,  again,  that  a  space  of  two  hundred 
feet  is  cut  out  of  it,  through  which  is  rushing  over 


48  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

seven  hundred  acres  of  water,  and  you  can  have 
only  a  faint  conception  of  the  terrible  force  of  the 
blow  that  came  upon  the  people  of  this  vicinity  like 
a  clap  of  thunder  out  of  a  clear  sky.  It  was  irre- 
sistible in  its  power  and  carried  everything  before 
it.  After  seeing  the  lake  and  the  opening  through 
the  dam  it  can  be  readily  understood  how  that  out- 
break came  to  be  so  destructive  in  its  character. 

The  lake  had  been  leaking,  and  a  couple  of  Ital- 
ians were  at  work  just  over  the  point  where  the 
break  occurred,  and  in  an  instant,  without  warning, 
it  gave  way  and  'they  went  down  in  the  whirling 
mass  of  water,  and  were  swept  into  eternity. 

Mr.  Grouse,  proprietor  of  the  South  Fork  Fish- 
ing Club  Hotel,  says:  "When  the  dam  of  Cone- 
maugh  lake  broke  the  water  seemed  to  leap, 
scarcely  touching  the  ground.  It  bounded  down 
the  valley,  crashing  and  roaring,  carrying  every- 
thing before  it.  For  a  mile  its  front  seemed  like 
a  solid  wall  twenty  feet  high."  The  only  warning 
given  to  Johnstown  was  sent  from  South  Fork 
village  by  Freight  Agent  Dechert.  When  the 
great  wall  that  held  the  body  of  water  began  to 
crumble  at  the  top  he  sent  a  message  begging  the 
people  of  Johnstown  for  God's  sake  to  take  to  the 
hills.  He  reports  no  serious  accidents  at  South 
Fork. 

Richard  Davis  ran  to  Prospect  Hill  when  the 
water  raised.  As  to  Mr.  Dechert's  message,  he 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  0  OD.  49 

says  just  such  have  been  sent  down  at  each  flood 
since  the  lake  was  made.  The  warning1  so  often 
proved  useless  that  little  attention  was  paid  to  it 
this  time.  "I  cannot  describe  the  mad  rush,"  he 
said.  "At  first  it  looked  like  dust.  That  must 
have  been  the  spray.  I  could  see  houses  going 
down  before  it  like  a  child's  play  blocks  set  on 
edge  in  a  row.  As  it  came  nearer  I  could  see 
houses  totter  for  a  moment,  then  rise  and  the  next 
moment  be  crushed  like  egg  shells,  against  each 
other." 

Mr.  John  G.  Parke,  of  Philadelphia,  a  civil  en- 
gineer, was  at  the  dam  superintending  some 
improvements  in  the  drainage  system  at  the  lake. 
He  did  all  he  could  with  the  help  of  a  gang  of 
laborers  to  avert  the  catastrophe  and  to  warn 
those  in  danger.  His  story  of  the  calamity  is 
this  : — 

"  For  several  days  prior  to  the  breaking  of  the 
dam,  storm  after  storm  swept  over  the  mountains 
and  flooded  every  creek  and  rivulet.  The  waters 
from  these  varied  sources  flowed  into  the  lake, 
which  finally  was  not  able  to  stand  the  pressure 
forced  upon  it.  Friday  morning  I  realized  the 
danger  that  was  threatened,  and  although  from 
that  time  until  three  o'clock  every  human  effort 
was  made  to  prevent  a  flood,  they  were  of  no 
avail.  When  I  at  last  found  that  the  dam  was 
bound  to  go,  I  started  out  to  tell  the  people,  and 


5O  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

by  twelve  o'clock  everybody  in  the  Conemaugh 
region  did  or  should  have  known  of  their  danger. 
Three  hours  later  my  gravest  fears  were  more 
than  realized.  It  is  an  erroneous  idea,  however, 
that  the  dam  burst.  It  simply  moved  away. 
The  water  gradually  ate  into  the  embankment 
until  there  was  nothing  left  but  a  frail  bulwark  of 
wood.  This  finally  split  asunder  and  sent  the 
waters  howling  down  the  mountains." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

• 
The  course  of  the  torrent  from  the  broken  dam 

at  the  foot  of  the  lake  to  Johnstown  is  almost 
eighteen  miles,  and  with  the  exception  of  one 
point,  the  water  passed  through  a  narrow  V-shaped 
valley.  Four  miles  below  the  dam  lay  the  town  of 
South  Fork,  where  the  South  Fork  itself  empties 
into  the  Conemaugh  river.  The  town  contained 
about  2000  inhabitants.  About  four-fifths  of  it 
has  been  swept  away.  Four  miles  further  down 
on  the  Conemaugh  river,  which  runs  parallel  with 
the  main  line  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  was 
the  town  of  Mineral  Point.  It  had  800  inhabitants, 
90  per  cent,  of  the  houses  being  on  a  flat  and 
close  to  the  river.  Terrible  as  it  may  seem,  very 
few  of  them  have  escaped.  Six  miles  further  down 
was  the  town  of  Conemaugh,  and  here  alone  there 
was  a  topographical  possibility — the  spreading  of 
the  flood  and  the  breaking  of  its  force.  It  contained 
2500  inhabitants,  and  has  been  almost  wholly 
devastated.  Woodvale,  with  2000  people,  lay  a 


5  2  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

•fe 

mile  below  Conemaugh  in  the  flat,  and  one  mile 
further  down  were  Johnstown  and  its  suburbs — 
Cambria  City  and  Conemaugh  borough,  with  a 
population  of  30,000.  On  made  ground,  and 
stretched  along  right  at  the  river's  verge,  were  the 
immense  iron  works  of  the  Cambria  Iron  and 
Steel  Company,  who  have  $5,000,000  invested  in 
their  plant.  Besides  this  there  are  many  other 
large  industrial  establishments  on  the  bank  of  the 
river. 

The  stream  of  human  beings  that  was  swept 
before  the  angry  floods  was  something  most  piti- 
ful to  behold.  Men,  women  and  children  were 
carried  along  frantically  shrieking  for  help,  but 
their  cries  availed  them  nothing.  Rescue  was 
impossible.  Husbands  were  swept  past  their 
wives,  and  children  were  borne  along,  at  a  terri- 
ble speed,  to  certain  death,  before  the  eyes  of 
their  terrorized  and  frantic  parents.  Houses,  out- 
buildings, trees  and  barns  were  carried  on  the 
angry  flood  of  waters  as  so  much  chaff.  Cattle 
standing  in  the  fields  were  overwhelmed,  and  their 
carcasses  strewed  the  tide.  The  railroad  tracks 
converging  on  the  town  were  washed  out,  and 
wires  in  all  directions  were  prostrated. 

Down  through  the  Packsaddle  came  the  rushing 
waters.  Clinging  to  improvised  rafts,  constructed 
in  the  death  battle  from  floating  boards  and  tim- 
bers, were  agonized  men,  women  and  children, 


THE  JOHNSTO  WAT  FL  OOD.  53 

their  heart-rending  shrieks  for  help  striking  horror 
to  the  breasts  of  the  onlookers.  Their  cries  were 
of  no  avail.  Carried  along  at  a  railway  speed  on 
the  breast  of  this  rushing  torrent,  no  human 
ingenuity  could  devise  a  means  of  rescue. 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  briefly  the  sudden- 
ness with  which  the  disaster  came.  A  warning 
sound  was  heard  at  Conemaugh  a  few  minutes 
before  the  rush  of  water  came,  but  it  was  attrib- 
uted to  some  metecrological  disturbance,  and  no 
trouble  was  borrowed  because  of  the  thing  unseen. 
As  the  low,  rumbling  noise  increased  in  volume, 
however,  and  came  nearer,  a  suspicion  of  danger 
began  to  force  itself  even  upon  the  bravest,  which 
was  increased  to  a  certainty  a  few  minutes  later, 
when,  with  a  rush,  the  mighty  stream  spread  out 
in  width,  and  when  there  was  no  time  to  do  any- 
thing to  save  themselves.  Many  of  the  unfortu- 
nates were  whirled  into  the  middle  of  the  stream 
before  they  could  turn  around ;  men,  women  and 
children  were  struggling  in  the  streets,  and  it  is 
thought  that  many  of  them  never  reached  Johns- 
town, only  a  mile  or  two  below. 

At  Johnstown  a  similar  scene  was  enacted,  only 
on  a  much  larger  scale.  The  population  is  greater 
and  the  sweeping  whirlpool  rushed  into  a  denser 
mass  of  humanity.  The  imagination  of  the  reader 
can  better  depict  the  spectacle  than  the  pen  of  the 
writer  can  give  it.  It  was  a  twilight  of  terror,  and 


54  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

the  gathering  shades  of  evening  closed  in  on  a 
panorama  of  horrors  that  has  few  parallels  in  the 
history  of  casualties. 

When  the  great  wave  from  Conemaugh  lake, 
behind  the  dam,  came  down  the  Conemaugh  Val- 
ley, the  first  obstacle  it  struck  was  the  great 
viaduct  over  the  South  Fork.  This  viaduct  was  a 
State  work,  built  to  carry  the  old  Portage  road 
across  the  Fork.  The  Pennsylvania.  Railroad 
parallels  the  Portage  road  for  a  long  distance,  and 
runs  over  the  Fork.  Besides  sweeping  the  via- 
duct down,  the  bore,  or  smaller  bores  on  its  wings, 
washed  out  the  Portage  road  for  miles.  One  of 
the  small  bores  went  down  the  bed  of  a  brook 
which  comes  into  the  Conemaugh  at  the  village  of 
South  Fork,  which  is  some  distance  above  the  via- 
duct. The  big  bore  backed  the  river  above  the 
village.  The  small  bore  was  thus  checked  in  its 
course  and  flowed  into  the  village. 

The  obstruction  below  being  removed,  the 
backed-up  water  swept  the  village  of  South  Fork 
away.  The  flood  came  down.  It  moved  steadily, 
but  with  a  velocity  never  yet  attained  by  an  engine 
moved  by  power  controllable  by  man.  It  accom- 
modated itself  to  the  character  of  the  breaks  in 
the  hill.  It  filled  every  one,  whether  narrow  or 
broad.  Its  thrust  was  sideways  and  downward  as 
well  as  forward.  By  side  thrusts  it  scoured  every 
cave  and  bend  in  the  line  of  the  mountains, 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL OOD.  57 

lessening  its  direct  force  to  exert  power  laterally, 
but  at  the  same  time  moving  its  centre  straight  on 
Johnstown.  It  is  well  to  state  that  the  Conemaugh 
river  is  tortuous,  like  most  streams  of  its  kind. 
Wherever  the  mountains  retreat,  flats  make  out 
from  them  to  the  channel  of  the  stream.  It  was 
on  such  flats  that  South  Fork  and  Mineral  Point 
villages  and  the  boroughs  of  Conemaugh,  Frank- 
lin, Woodvale,  East  Conemaugh  and  Johnstown 
were  built. 

After  emerging  from  the  South  Fork,  with  the 
ruins  of  the  great  viaduct  in  its  maw,  it  swept 
down  a  narrow  valley  until  just  above  the  village 
of  Mineral  Point.  There  it  widened,  and,  thrust- 
ing its  right  wing  into  the  hollow  where  the  village 
nestled,  it  swept  away  every  house  on  the  flat. 
These  were  soon  welded  into  a  compact  mass, 
with  trees  and  logs  and  general  drift  stuff.  This 
mass  followed  the  bore.  What  the  bore  could 
not  budge,  its  follower  took  up  and  carried. 

The  first  great  feat  at  carrying  and  lifting  was 
done  at  East  Conemaugh.  It  tore  up  every  build- 
ing in  the  yard  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  It 
took  locomotives  and  carried  them  down  and  dug 
holes  for  their  burials.  It  has  been  said  that  the  flood 
had  a  downward  thrust.  There  was  proof  of  this 
on  the  banks  of  the  river,  where  there  was  a  sort 
of  breakwater  of  concreted  cinders,  slag,  and  other 
things,  making  a  combination  harder  than  stone. 

•     4 


5 8  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

Unable  to  get  a  grip  directly  on  these  banks,  the 
flood  jumped  over  them,  threw  the  whole  weight 
of  the  mass  of  logs  and  broken  buildings  down  on 
the  sand  behind  them,  scooped  this  sand  out,  and 
then,  by  backward  blows,  knocked  the  concrete  to 
'pieces.  In  this  it  displayed  almost  the  uttermost 
skill  of  human  malice. 

After  crossing  the  flat  of  East  Conemaugh  and 
scooping  out  of  their  situations  sixty-five  houses 
in  two  streets,  as  well  as  tearing  passenger  trains 
to  pieces,  drowning  an  unknown  number  of  per- 
sons, and  picking  up  others  to  dash  against  what- 
ever obstacles  it  encountered,  it  sent  a  force  to  the 
left,  which  cut  across  the  flat  of  Franklin  borough, 
ripped  thirty-two  houses  to  pieces,  and  cut  a  sec- 
ond channel  for  the  Conemaugh  river,  leaving  an 
island  to  mark  the  place  of  division  of  the  forces 
of  the  flood.  The  strength  of  the  eastern  wing 
can  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  the  iron  bars 
piled  in  heaps  in  the  stock  yard  of  the  Cambria 
Iron  Company  were  swept  away,  and  that  some 
of  them  may  be  found  all  along  the  river  as  far  as 
Johnstown. 

After  this  came  the  utter  wiping  out  of  the 
borough  of  Woodvale,  on  the  flat  to  the  northeast 
of  Johnstown  and  diagonally  opposite  it.  Wood- 
vale  had  a  population  of  nearly  3000  people.  It 
requires  a  large  number  of  houses  to  shelter  so 
many.  Estimating  10  to  a  family,  which  is  a  big 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  59 

estimate,  there  were  300  houses  in  Woodvaie. 
There  were  also  a  woolen  mill,  a  flour  mill,  the 
Gautier  Barb  Wire  Mills  of  the  Cambria  Iron 
Company,  and  the  tannery  of  W.  H.  Rosenthal  & 
Co.  Only  the  flour  mill  and  the  middle  section  of 
the  bridge  remain.  The  flat  is  bare  otherwise. 
The  stables  of  the  Woodvaie  Horse  Railroad 
Company  went  out  with  the  water ;  every  horse 
and  car  in  them  went  also. 

The  change  was  wrought  in  five  minutes.  Rob- 
ert Miller,  who  lost  two  of  his  children  and  his 
mother-in-law,  thus  describes  the  scene  :  "  I  was 
standing  near  the  Woodvaie  Bridge,  between 
Maple  avenue  and  Portage  street,  in  Johnstown. 
The  river  was  high,  and  David  Lucas  and  I  were 
speculating  about  the  bridges,  whether  they  would 
go  down  or  not.  Lucas  said,  '  I  guess  this  bridge 
will  stand  ;  it  does  not  seem  to  be  weakened.' 
Just  then  we  saw  a  dark  object  up  the  river. 
Over  it  was  a  white  mist.  It  was  hi<jh  and  some- 

o 

how  dreadful,  though  we  could  not  make  it  out. 
Dark  smoke  seemed  to  form  a  background 
for  the  mist.  We  did  not  wait  for  more.  By 
instinct  we  knew  the  big  dam  had  burst  and  its 
water  was  coming  upon  us.  Lucas  jumped  on 
a  car  horse,  rode  across  the  bridge,  and  went 
yelling  into  Johnstown.  The  flood  overtook  him, 
and  he  had  to  abandon  his  horse  and  climb  a 
high  hill. 


6O  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

"I  went  straight  to  my  house  in  Woodvale, 
warning  everybody  as  I  ran.  My  wife  and  mother- 
in-law  were  ready  to  move,  with  my  five  children, 
so  we  went  for  the  hillside,  but  we  were  not  speedy 
enough.  The  water  had  come  over  the  flat  at  its 
base  and  cut  us  off.  I  and  my  wife  climbed  into 
a  coal  car  with  one  of  the  children,  to  get  out  of 
the  water.  I  put  two  more  children  into  the  car 
and  looked  around  for  my  other  children  and  my 
mother-in-law.  My  mother-in-law  was  a  stout 
woman,  weighing  about  two  hundred  and  twelve 
pounds.  She  could  not  climb  into  a  car.  The 
train  was  too  long  for  her  to  go  around  it,  so  she 
tried  to  crawl  under,  leading  the  children. 

"The  train  was  suddenly  pushed  forward  by  the 
flood,  and  she  was  knocked  down  and  crushed,  so 
were  my  children,  by  the  same  shock.  My  wife 
and  children  in  the  car  were  thrown  down  and 
covered  with  coal.  I  was  taken  off  by  the  water, 
but  I  swam  to  the  car  and  pulled  them  from  under 
a  lot  of  coal.  A  second  blow  to  the  train  threw 
our  car  against  the  hillside  and  us  out  of  it  to  firm 
earth.  I  never  saw  my  two  children 'and  mother- 
in-law  after  the  flood  first  struck  the  train  of  coal 
cars.  I  have  often  heard  it  said  that  the  dam 
might  break,  but  I  never  paid  any  attention  to  it 
before.  It  was  common  talk  whenever  there  was 
a  freshet  or  a  big  pack  of  ice." 

The  principal  street  of  Woodvale  was  Maple 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  6 1 

avenue.  The  Conemaugh  river  now  rushes 
through  it  from  one  side  of  the  flat  to  the  other. 
Its  pavement  is  beautifully  clean.  It  is  doubtful 
that  it  will  ever  be  cleared  by  mortal  agency  again. 
Breaking  down  the  barbed  steel  wire  mill  and 
the  tannery  at  the  bridge,  the  flood  went  across  the 
regular  channel  of  the  river  and  struck  the  Gau- 
tier  Steel  Works,  made  up  of  numerous  stanch 
brick  buildings  and  one  immense  structure  of 
iron,  filled  with  enormous  boilers,  fly  wheels,  and 
machinery  generally.  The  buildings  are  strewn 
through  Johnstown.  Near  their  sites  are  some 
bricks,  twisted  iron  beams,  boilers,  wheels,  and 
engine  bodies,  bound  together  with  logs,  drift- 
wood, tree  branches,  and  various  other  things, 
woven  in  and'  out  of  one  another  marvelously. 
These  aggregations  are  of  enormous  size  and 
weight.  They  were  not  too  strong  for  the  im- 
mense power  of  the  destroying  agent,  for  a 
twenty-ton  locomotive,  taken  from  the  Gautier 
Works,  now  lies  in  Main  street,  three-quarters  of 
a  mile  away.  It  did  not  simply  take  a  good  grip 
upon  them  ;  it  was  spreading  out  its  line  for  a 
force  by  its  left  wing,  and  hit  simultaneously  upon 
Johnstown  flat,  its  people  and  houses,  while  its 
right  wing  did  whatever  it  could  in  the  way  of 
helping  the  destructive  work.  The  left  wing 
scoured  the  flat  to  the  base  of  the  mountain. 
With  a  portion  of  the  centre  it  then  rushed  across 


62  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

Stony  creek.  The  remainder  of  the  central  force 
cleared  several  paths  in  diverging  directions 
through  the  town. 

While  the  left  and  centre  were  tearing  houses 
to  pieces  and  drowning  untold  lives,  the  right  had 
been  hurrying  along  the  base  of  the  northern 
hills,  in  the  channel  of  the  Conemaugh  river, 
carrying  down  the  houses,  bridges,  human  beings 
and  other  drift  that  had  been  picked  up  on  the 
way  from  South  Fork. 

Thus  far  the  destruction  at  Johnstown  had  not 
been  one-quarter  what  it  is  now.  But  the  bed  of 
the  Conemaugh  beyond  Johnstown  is  between 
high  hills  that  come  close  together.  The  cut  is 
bridged  by  a  viaduct.  The  right  wing,  with  its 
plunder,  was  stopped  by  the  bridge  and  the  bend. 
The  left  and  centre  came  tearing  down  Stony 
creek.  There  was  a  collision  of  forces.  The 
men,  women,  children,  horses,  other  domestic 
animals,  houses,  bridges,  railroad  cars,  logs  and 
tree  branches  were  jammed  together  in  a  solid 
mass,  which  only  dynamite  can  break  up.  The 
outlet  of  Stony  creek  was  almost  completely 
closed  and  the  channel  of  the  Conemaugh  was 
also  choked.  The  water  in  both  surged  back.  In 
Stony  creek  it  went  along  the  curve  of  the  base 
of  the  hill  in  front  of  which  Kernville  is  built. 
Dividing  its  strength,  one  part  of  the  flood  went 
up  Stony  creek  a  short  distance  and  moved  around 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  63 

again  into  Johnstown.  It  swept  before  it  many 
more  houses  than  before  and  carried  them  around 
in  a  circle,  until  they  met  and  crashed  against 
other  houses,  torn  from  the  point  of  Johnstown 
flat  by  a  similar  wave  moving  in  a  circle  from  the 
Conemaugh. 

The  two  waves  and  their  burdens  went  around 
and  around  in  slowly-diminishing  circles,  until 
most  of  the  houses  had  been  ground  to  pieces. 
There  are  living  men,  women  and  children  who 
circled  in  these  frightful  vortices  for  an  hour. 
Lawyer  Rose,  his  wife,  his  two  brothers  and  his 
two  sisters  are  among  those.  They  were  drawn 
out  of  their  house  by  the  suction  of  the  retreating 
water,  and  thus  were  started  on  a  frightful  jour- 
ney. Three  times  they  went  from  the  Kernville 
side  of  the  creek  to  the  centre  of  the  Johnstown 
flat  and  past  their  own  dwelling.  They  were 
dropped  at  last  on  the  Kernville  shore.  Mr. 
Rose  had  his  collar  bone  broken,  but  the  others 
were  hurt  only  by  fright,  wetting  and  some 
bruises. 

Some  of  the  back  water  went  up  the  creek  and 
did  damage  at  Grubtown  and  Hornerstown. 
More  of  it,  following  the  line  of  the  mountain, 
rushed  in  at  the  back  of  Kernville.  It  cut  a 
clear  path  for  itself  from  the  lower  end  of  the 
village  to  the  upper  end,  diagonally  opposite, 
passing  through  the  centre.  It  sent  little  streams 


64  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

to  topple  homes  over  in  side  places  and  went  on 
a  round  trip  into  the  higher  part  of  Johnstown, 
between  the  creek  and  the  hill.  It  carried  houses 
from  Kernville  to  the  Johnstown  bank  of  the  creek, 
and  left  them  there.  Then  it  coursed  down  the 
bank,  overturning  trains  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  railroad,  and  also  houses,  and  keeping  on 
until  it  had  made  the  journey  several  times. 

How  so  marvelous  a  force  was  exerted  is  illus- 
trated in  the  following  statement  from  Jacob  Reese, 
of  Pittsburg,  the  inventor  of  the  basic  process  for 
manufacturing  steel.  Mr.  Reese  says  : — 

"  When  the  South  Fork  dam  gave  way, 
16,000,000  tons  of  water  rushed  down  the  moun- 
tain side,  carrying  thousands  of  tons  of  rocks, 
logs  and  trees  with  it.  When  the  flood  reached 
the  Conemaugh  Valley  it  struck  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  at  a  point  where  they  make  up  the  trains 
for  ascending  the  Allegheny  Mountains.  Several 
trains  with  their  locomotives  and  loaded  cars  were 
swept  down  the  valley  before  the  flood  wave, 
which  is  said  to  have  been  fifty  feet  high.  Cars 
loaded  with  iron,  cattle,  and  freight  of  all  kinds, 
with  those  mighty  locomotives,  weighing  from 
seventy  to  one  hundred  tons  each,  were  pushed 
ahead  of  the  flood,  trucks  and  engines  rolling  over 
and  over  like  mere  toys. 

"  Sixteen  million  tons  of  water  gathering  fences, 
barns,  houses,  mills  and  shops  into  its  maw.  Down 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  65 

the  valley  for  three  miles  or  more  rushed  this 
mighty  avalanche  of  death,  sweeping  everything 
before  it,  and  leaving  nothing  but  death  and  de- 
struction behind  it.  When  it  struck  the  railroad 
bridge  at  Johnstown,  and  not  being  able  to  force 
its  way  through  that  stone  structure,  the  debris 
was  gorged  and  the  water  dammed  up  fifty  feet  in 
ten  minutes. 

"  This  avalanche  was  composed  of  more  than 
100,000  tons  of  rocks,  locomotives,  freight  cars, 
car  trucks,  iron,  logs,  trees  and  other  material 
pushed  forward  by  16,000,000  tons  of  water  filling 
500  feet,  and  it  was  this  that,  sliding  over  the 
ground,  mowed  down  the  houses,  mills  and 
factories  as  a  mowing  machine  does  a  field  of 
grain.  It  swept  down  with  a  roaring,  crushing 
sound,  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a  minute,  and  hurled 
10,000  people  into  the  jaws  of  death  in  less  than 
half  an  hour.  And  so  the  people  called  it  the 
avalanche  of  death." 


CHAPTER  V. 

"Johnstown  is  annihilated,"  telegraphed  Super- 
intendent Pitcairn  to  Pittsburg  on  Friday  night. 
"He  came,"  says  one  who  visited  the  place  on 
Sunday,  "  very  close  to  the  facts  of  the  case. 
Nothing  like  it  was  ever  seen  in  this  country. 
Where  long  rows  of  dwelling-houses  and  business 
blocks  stood  forty-eight  hours  ago,  ruin  and  deso- 
lation now  reign  supreme.  Probably  1500  houses 
have  been  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth  as 
completely  as  if  they  had  never  been  erected. 
Main  street,  from  end  to  end,  is  piled  fifteen 
and  twenty  feet  high  with  debris,  and  in  some 
instances  it  is  as  high  as  the  roofs  of  the  houses. 
This  great  mass  of  wreckage  fills  the  street  from 
curb  to  curb,  and  frequently  has  crushed  the  build- 
ings in  and  filled  the  space  with  reminders  of 
the  terrible  calamity.  There  is  not  a  man  in  the 
place  who  can  give  any  reliable  estimate  of  the 
number  of  houses  that  have  been  swept  away. 
City  Solicitor  Kuehn,  who  should  be  very  good 
authority  in  this  matter,  places  the  number  at 

66 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL ODD.  6 / 

1500.  From  the  woolen  mill  above  the  island  to 
the  bridge,  a  distance  of  probably  two  miles,  a 
strip  of  territory  nearly  a  half  mile  in  width  has 
been  swept  clean,  not  a  stick  of  timber  or  one 
brick  on  top  of  another  being  left  to  tell  the  story. 
It  is  the  most  complete  wreck  that  imagination 
could  portray. 

"All  day  long  men,  women,  and  children  were 
.plodding  about  the  desolate  waste  looking  in  vain 
to  locate  the  boundaries  of  their  former  homes. 
Nothing  but  a  wide  expanse  of  mud,  ornamented 
here  and  there  with  heaps  of  driftwood,  remained, 
however,  for  their  contemplation.  It  is  perfectly 
safe  to  say  that  every  house  in  the  city  that  was 
not  located  well  up  on  the  hillside  was  either 
swept  completely  away  or  wrecked  so  badly  that 
rebuilding  will  be  absolutely  necessary.  These 
losses,  however,  are  nothing  compared  to  the 
frightful  sacrifice  of  precious  human  lives  to  be 
seen  on  every  hand. 

"  During  all  this  solemn  Sunday  Johnstown  has 
been  drenched  with  the  tears  of  stricken  mortals, 
and  the  air  is  filled  with  sobs  and  sighs  that  come 
from  breaking -hearts.  There  are  scenes  enacted 
here  every  hour  and  every  minute  that  affect  all 
beholders  profoundly.  When  homes  are  thus  torn 
asunder  in  an  instant,  and  the  loved  ones  hurled 
from  the  arms  of  loving  and  devoted  mothers, 


68  THE  JO  HNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

there  is  an  element  of  sadness  in  the  tragedy  that 
overwhelms  every  heart. 

"A  slide,  a  series  of  frightful  tosses  from  side 
to  side,  a  run,  and  you  have  crossed  the  narrow 
rope  bridge  which  spanned  the  chasm  dug  by  the 
waters  between  the  stone  bridge  and  Johnstown. 
Crossing  the  bridge  is  an  exciting  task,  yet  many 
women  accomplished  it  rather  than  remain  in 
Johnstown.  The  bridge  pitched  like  a  ship  in  a 
storm.  Within  two  inches  of  your  feet  rushed  the 
muddy  waters  of  the  Conemaugh.  There  were 
no  ropes  to  easily  guide,  and  creeping  was  more 
convenient  than  walking.  One  had  to  cross  the 
Conemaugh  at  a  second  point  in  order  to  reach 
Johnstown  proper.  This  was  accomplished  by  a 
skiff  ferry.  The  ferryman  clung  to  a  rope  and 
pulled  the  boat  over. 

"After  landing  one  walks  across  a  desolate  sea 
of  mud,  in  which  there  are  interred  many  human 
bodies.  It  was  once  the  handsome  portion  of  the 
town.  The  cellars  are  filled  up  with  mud,  so  that 
a  person  who  has  never  seen  the  city  can  hardly 
imagine  that  houses  ever  stood  where  they  did. 
Four  streets  solidly  built  up  with  houses  have  been 
swept  away.  Nothing  but  a  small,  two-story  frame 
house  remains.  It  was  near  the  edge  of  the  wave 
and  thus  escaped,  although  one  side  was  torn  off. 
The  walk  up  to  wrecks  of  houses  was  interrupted 
in  many  places  by  small  branch  streams.  Occa- 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  69 

sionally  across  the  flats  could  be  seen  the  remains 
of  a  victim.  The  stench  arising  from  the  mud  is 
sickening.  Along  the  route  were  strewn  tin  uten- 
sils, pieces  of  machinery,  iron  pipes,  and  wares  of 
every  conceivable  kind.  In  the  midst  of  the  wreck 
a  clothing  store  dummy,  with  a  hand  in  the  posi- 
tion of  beckoning  to  a  person,  stands  erect  and 
uninjured. 

"It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  appearance  of 
Main  street.  Whole  houses  have  been  swept 
down  this  one  street  and  become  lodged.  The 
wreck  is  piled  as  high  as  the  second-story  windows. 
The  reporter  could  step  from  the  wreck  into  the 
auditorium  of  the  opera  house.  The  ruins  consist 
of  parts  of  houses,  trees,  saw  logs  and  reels  from 
the  wire  factory.  Many  houses  have  their  side 
walls  and  roofs  torn  up,  and  one  can  walk  directly 
into  what  had  been  second-story  bed-rooms,  or  go 
in  by  way  of  the  top.  Further  up  town  a  raft  of 
logs  lodged  in  the  street,  and  did  great  damage. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  wreckage,  which  is  at  the 
opening  of  the  valley  of  the  Conemaugh,  one  can 
look  up  the  valley  for  miles  and  not  see  a  house. 
Nothing  stands  but  an  old  woolen  mill. 

"  Charles  Luther  is  the  name  of  the  boy  who 
stood  on  an  adjacent  elevation  and  saw  the  whole 
flood.  He  said  he  heard  a  grinding  noise  far  up 
the  valley,  and  looking  up  he  could  see  a  dark 
line  moving  slowly  toward  him.  He  saw  that  it 


7  O  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

was  houses.  On  they  came,  like  the  hand  of  a 
giant  clearing  off  his  table.  High  in  the  air  would 
be  tossed  a  log  or  beam,  which  fell  back  with  a 
crash.  Down  the  valley  it  moved  and  across  the 
little  mountain  city.  For  ten  minutes  nothing  but 
moving  houses  were  seen,  and  then  tWfe  waters 
came  with  a  roar  and  a  rush.  This  lasted  for  two 
hours,  and  then  it  began  to  flow  more  steadily." 

Seen  from  the  high  hill  across  the  river  from 
Johnstown,  the  Conemaugh  Valley  gives  an  easy 
explanation  of  the  terrible  destruction  which  it  has 
suffered.  This  valley,  stretching  back  almost  in  a 
straight  line  for  miles,  suddenly  narrows  near 
Johnstown.  The  wall  of  water  which  came  tearing 
down  toward  the  town,  picking  up  all  the  houses 
and  mills  in  the  villages  along  its  way,  suddenly 
rose  in  height  as  it  came  to  the  narrow  pass.  It 
swept  over  the  nearest  part  of  the  town  and  met 
the  waters  of  Stony  creek,  swollen  by  rains,  rush- 
ing along  with  the  speed  of  a  torrent.  The  two 
forces  coming  together,  each  turned  aside  and 
started  away  again  in  a  half-circle,  seeking  an  out- 
let in  the  lower  Conemaugh  Valley.  The  massive 
stone  bridge  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Com- 
pany, at  the  lower  base  of  the  triangle,  was  almost 
instantly  choked  up  with  the  great  mass  of  wreck- 
age dashed  against  it,  and  became  a  dam  that 
could  not  be  swept  away,  and  proved  to  be  the 
ruin  of  the  town  and  the  villages  above.  The 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  Jl 

waters  checked  here,  formed  a  vast  whirlpool, 
which  destroyed  everything  within  its  circle.  It 
backed  up  on  the  other  side  of  the  triangle,  and 
devastated  the  village  of  Kernville,  across  the 
river  from  Johnstown. 

The  force  of  the  current  was  truly  appalling. 
The  best  evidence  of  its  force  is  exhibited  in  the 
mass  of  debris  south  of  the  Pennsylvania  bridge. 
Persons  on  the  hillsides  declare  that  houses,  solid 
from  their  foundation  stones,  were  rushed  on  to 
destruction  at  the  rate  of  thirty  miles  an  hour. 
On  one  house  forty  persons  were  counted  ;  their 
cries  for  help  were  heard  far  above  the  roaring 
waters.  At  the  railroad  bridge  the  house  parted 
in  the  middle,  and  the  cries  of  the  unfortunate 
people  were  smothered  in  the  engulfing  waters. 

At  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  a  huge  hickory 
struck  the  south  brick  wall  of  the  rolling  mill  at 
an  angle,  went  through  it  and  the  west  wall,  where 
it  remains.  A  still  more  extraordinary  incident  is 
seen  at  the  foot-bridge  of  the  Pennsylvania  station, 
on  the  freight  track  built  for  the  Cambria  Iron 
Works.  The  sunken  track  and  bridge  are  built 
in  a  curve.  In  clearing  out  the  track  the  Cambria 
workmen  discovered  two  huge  bridge  trusses 
intact,  the  larger  one  30  feet  long  and  10  feet 
high.  It  lay  close  to  the  top  of  the  bridge  and 
had  been  driven  into  the  cut  at  least  fifty  feet. 

It  was  with  an  impulse  to  the  right  side  of  the 


7  2  THE  JO  HNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

mountain  that  the  great  mass  of  water  came  down 
the  Conemaugh  river.  It  was  a  mass  of  water 
with  a  front  forty  feet  high,  and  an  eighth  of  a 
mile  wide.  Its  velocity  was  so  great  that  its  first 
sweep  did  little  damage  on  either  side.  It  had  no 
time  to  spread.  Where  it  burst  from  the  gap  it 
swept  south  until  it  struck  the  bridge,  and,  although 
it  was  ten  feet  or  more  deep  over  the  top  of  the 
bridge,  the  obstruction  of  the  mass  of  masonry 
was  so  great  that  the  head  of  the  rush  of  water 
was  turned  back  along  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
bluff  on  the  left,  and,  sweeping  up  to  where  it  met 
the  first  stream  again,  licked  up  the  portion  of  the 
town  on  the  left  side  of  the  triangular  plain.  A 
great  eddy  was  thus  formed.  Through  the  Stony 
Creek  Gap  to  the  right  there  was  a  rush  of  surplus 
water.  In  two  minutes  after  the  current  first  burst 
through,  forty  feet  deep,  with  a  solid  mass  of  water 
whirling  around  with  a  current  of  tremendous  ve- 
locity, it  was  a  whirlpool  vastly  greater  than  that 
of  ten  Niagaras.  The  only  outlet  was  under  and 
over  the  railroad  bridge,  and  the  continuing  rush 
of  the  waters  into  the  valley  from  the  gap  was 
greater  for  some  time  than  the  means  of  escape 
at  the  bridge. 

"  Standing  now  at  the  bridge,"  says  a  visitor  on 
Monday,  "  where  this  vast  whirlpool  struggled  for 
exit,  the  air  is  heavy  with  smoke  and  foul  with 
nameless  odors  from  a  mass  of  wreckage.  The 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  75 

area  of  the  triangular  space  where  the  awful  whirl- 
pool revolved  is  said  to  be  about  four  square 
miles.  The  area  of  the  space  covered  by  this 
smoking  mass  is  sixty  acres.  The  surface  of  this 
mass  is  now  fifteen  feet  below  the  top  of  the 
bridge  and  about  thirty  below  the  point  on  the 
bluff  where  the  surface  of  the  whirlpool  lashed 
the  banks.  One  ragged  mass  some  distance 
above  the  bridge  rises  several  feet  above  the 
general  level,  but  with  that  exception  the  surface 
of  the  debris  is  level.  It  has  burned  off  until  it 
reached  the  water,  and  is  smouldering  on  as  the 
water  gradually  lowers.  On  the  right  bank,  at 
about  where  was  the  highest  water  level,  a  detach- 
ment of  the  Pittsburg  Fire  Department  is  throw- 
ing two  fitful  streams  of  water  down  into  the 
smoke,  with  the  idea  of  gradually  extinguishing 
the  fire.  In  the  immensity  of  the  disaster  with 
which  they  combat  their  feeble  efforts  seem  like 
those  of  boys  with  squirt  guns  dampening  a  bon- 
fire. About  the  sixty  acres  of  burning  debris,  and 
to  the  left  of  it  from  where  it  begins  to  narrow 
toward  Stony  Creek  Gap,  there  is  a  large  area  of 
level  mud,  with  muddy  streams  wandering  about 
in  it.  This  tract  of  mud  comprises  all  of  the  tri- 
angle except  a  thin  fringe  of  buildings  along  the 
bluff  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  A  consider- 
able number  of  houses  stand  on  the  hiq-h  ground 

•  o        o 

on  the  lower  face  of  the  central  mountain  and  off 
5 


7  6  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  0 OD. 

to  the  right  into  Stony  Creek  Gap.  The  fringe 
along  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  is  mostly  of 
stores  and  other  large  brick  buildings  that  are 
completely  wrecked,  though  not  swept  away.  The 
houses  on  the  higher  ground  are  unharmed  ;  but 
down  toward  the  edge  they  fade  away  by  degrees 
of  completeness  in  their  wreckage  into  the  yellow 
level  of  the  huge  tract  over  which  the  mighty  whirl- 
pool swept.  Off  out  of  sight,  in  Stony  Creek  Gap, 
are  fringes  of  houses  on  either  side  of  the  muddy 
flat. 

"  This  flat  is  a  peculiar  thing.  It  is  level  and 
uninteresting  as  a  piece  of  waste  ground.  Too 
poor  to  grow  grass,  there  is  nothing  to  indicate 
that  it  had 'ever  been  anything  else  than  what  it  is. 
It  is  as  clean  of  debris  and  wreckage  as  though 
there  had  never  been  a  building  on  it.  In  reality 
it  was  the  central  and  busiest  part  of  Johnstown. 
Buildings,  both  dwellings  and  stores,  covered  it 
thickly.  Its  streets  were  paved,  and  its  sidewalks 
of  substantial  stone.  It  had  street-car  lines,  gas 
and  electric  lights,  and  all  the  other  improvements 
of  a  substantial  city  of  15,000  or  20,000  inhabitants. 
Iron  bridges  spanned  the  streams,  and  the  build- 
ings were  of  substantial  character.  Not  a  brick 
remains,  not  a  stone  nor  a  stick  of  timber  in  all 
this  territory.  There  are  not  even  hummocks  and 
mounds  to  show  where  wreckage  might  be  covered 
with  a  layer  of  mud.  They  are  not  there,  they  are 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  00  D.  77 

gone — every  building,  every  street,  every  sidewalk 
and  pavement,  the  street  railways,  and  everything 
else  that  covered  the  surface  of  the  earth  has  van- 
ished as  utterly  as  though  it  had  never  been  there. 
The  ground  was  swept  as  clean  as  though  some 
mighty  scraper  had  been  dragged  over  it  again 
and  again.  Not  even  the  lines  of  the  streets  can 
be  remotely  traced. 

" '  I  have  visited  Johnstown  a  dozen  times  a  year 
for  a  long  time,'  said  a  business  man  to-day,  '  and 
I  know  it  thoroughly,  but  I  haven't  the  least  idea 
now  of  what  part  of  it  this  is.  I  can't  even  tell  the 
direction  the  streets  used  to  run.' 

"  His  bewilderment  is  hardly  greater  than  that 
of  the  citizens  themselves.  They  wander  about  in 
the  mud  for  hours  trying  to  find  the  spot  where 
the  house  of  some  friend  or  relative  used  to  stand. 
It  takes  a  whole  family  to  locate  the  site  of  their 
friend's  house  with  any  reasonable  certainty. 

"Wandering  over  this  muddy  plain  one  can 
realize  something  of  what  must  have  been  the 
gigantic  force  of  that  vast  whirlpool.  It  pressed 
upon  the  town  like  some  huge  millstone,  weighing 
tens  of  thousands  of  tons  and  revolving  with  awful 
velocity,  pounding  to  powder  everything  beneath. 
But  the  conception  of  the  power  of  that  horrible 
eddy  of  the  flood  must  remain  feeble  until  that 
sixty  acres  of  burning  debris  is  inspected.  It 
seems  from  a  little  distance  like  any  other  mass  of 


78  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL OOD. 

wreckage,  though  vastly  longer  than  any  ever  be- 
fore seen  in  this  country.  It  must  have  been  many 
times  more  tremendous  when  it  was  heaped  up 
twenty  feet  higher  over  its  whole  area  and  before 
the  fire  leveled  it  off.  But  neither  then  nor  now 
can  the  full  terror  of  the  flood  that  piled  it  there 
be  adequately  realized  until  a  trip  across  parts 
where  the  fire  has  been  extinguished  shows  the 
manner  in  which  the  stuff  composing  it  is  packed 
together.  It  is  not  a  heap  of  broken  timbers  lying 
loosely  thrown  together  in  all  directions.  It  is  a 
solid  mass.  The  boards  and  timbers  which  made 
up  the  frame  buildings  are  laid  together  as  closely 
as  sticks  of  wood  in  a  pile — more  closely,  for  they 
are  welded  into  one  another  until  each  stick  is  as 
solidly  fixed  in  place  as  though  all  were  one.  A 
curious  thing  is  that  wherever  there  are  a  few 
boards  together  they  are  edge  up,  and  never 
standing  on  end  or  flat.  The  terrible  force  of  the 
whirlpool  that  ground  four  square  miles  of  build- 
ings into  this  sixty  acres  of  wreckage  left  no 
opportunity  for  gaps  or  holes  between  pieces  in 
the  river.  Everything  was  packed  together  as 
solidly  as  though  by  sledge-hammer  blows. 

"  But  the  boards  and  timber  of  four  square 
miles  of  buildings  are  not  all  that  is  in  that  sixty- 
acre  mass.  An  immense  amount  of  debris  from 
further  up  the  valley  lies  there.  Twenty-seven 
locomotives,  several  Pullman  cars  and  probably  a 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  Jg 

hundred  other  cars,  or  all  that  is  left  of  them,  are 
in  that  mass.  Fragments  of  iron  bridges  can  be 
seen  sticking  out  occasionally  above  the  wreckage. 
They  are  about  the  only  things  the  fire  has  not 
leveled,  except  the  curious  hillock  spoken  of,  which 
is  an  eighth  of  a  mile  back  from  the  bridge,  where 
the  flames  apparently  raged  less  fiercely.  Scattered 
over  the  area,  also,  are  many  blackened  logs  that 
were  too  big  to  be  entirely  burned,  and  that  stick 
up  now  like  spar  buoys  in  a  sea  of  ruin.  Little 
jets  of  flame,  almost  unseen  by  daylight,  but  ap- 
pearing as  evening  falls,  are  scattered  thickly  over 
the  surface  of  the  wreckage. 

"  Of  the  rest  of  Johnstown,  and  the  collection 
of  towns  within  sight  of  the  bridge,  not  much  is 
to  be  said.  They  are,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
gone,  as  Johnstown  is  gone.  Far  up  the  gap 
through  which  came  the  flood  a  large  brick  build- 
ing remains  standing,  but  ruined.  It  is  all  that  is 
left  of  one  of  the  biggest  wire  mills  and  steel 
works  in  the  country.  Turning  around  below  the 
bridge  are  the  works  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Com- 
pany. The  buildings  are  still  standing,  but  they 
are  pretty  well  ruined,  and  the  machinery  with 
which  they  were  filled  is  either  totally  destroyed 
or  damaged  almost  beyond  repair.  High  up  on 
the  hill  at  the  left  and  scattered  up  on  other  hills 
in  sight  are  many  dwellings,  neat,  well  kept,  and 
attractive  places  apparently,  and  looking  as  bright 


80  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

and  fresh  now  as  before  the  awful  torrent  wiped 
out  of  existence  everything  in  the  valley  below. 

"  This  is  Johnstown  and  its  immediate  vicinity 
as  nearly  as  words  can  paint  it.  It  is  a  single 
Feature,  one  section  out  of  fifteen  miles  of  horror 
that  stretches  through  this  once  lovely  valley  of 
the  Allegheny.  What  is  true  of  Johnstown  is  true 
of  every  town  for  miles  up  and  down.  The 
desolation  of  one  town  may  differ  from  the  deso- 
lation in  others  as  one  death  may  differ  from 
another ;  but  it  is  desolation  and  death  every- 
where— desolation  so  complete,  so  relentless,  so 
dreadful  that  it  is  absolutely  beyond  the  power  of 
language  fairly  to  tell  the  tale." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MR.  WILLIAM  HENRY  SMITH,  General 
Manager  of  the  Associated  Press,  was  a 
passenger  on  a  railroad  train  which  reached  the 
Conemaugh  Valley  on  the  very  day  of  the  disas- 
ter.    He  writes  as  follows  of  what  he  saw : 

"The  fast  line  trains  that  leave  Chicago  at 
quarter  past  three  and  Cincinnati  at  seven  p.  M.  con- 
stitute the  day-express  eastward  from  Pittsburg, 
which  runs  in  two  sections.  This  train  left  Pitts- 
burg  on  time  Friday  morning,  but  was  stopped  for 
an  hour  at  Johnstown  by  reports  of  a  wash-out 
ahead.  It  had  been  raining  hard  for  over  sixteen 
hours,  and  the  sides  of  the  mountains  were  covered 
with  water  descending  into  the  valleys.  The 
Conemaugh  River,  whose  bank  is  followed  by  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  for  many  miles,  looked  an 
angry  flood  nearly  bankfull.  Passengers  were 
interested  in  seeing  hundreds  of  saw-logs  and  an 
enormous  amount  of  driftwood  shoot  rapidly  by, 
and  the  train  pursued  its  way  eastward.  At 

Si 


£2  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Johnstown  there  was  a  long  wait,  as  before  stated. 
The  lower  stories  of  many  houses  were  submerged 
by  the  slack-water,  and  the  inhabitants  were  look- 
ing out  of  the  second-story  windows.  Horses 
were  standing  up  to  their  knees  in  water  in  the 
streets ;  a  side-track  of  the  railroad  had  been 
washed  out ;  loaded  cars  were  on  the  bridge  to 
keep  it  steady,  and  the  huge  poles  of  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company,  carrying  fifteen  wires, 
swayed  badly,  and  several  soon  went  down.  The 
two  sections  ran  to  Conemaugh,  about  two  miles 
eastward  of  Johnstown,  and  lay  there  about  three 
hours,  when  they  were  moved  on  to  the  highest 
ground  and  placed  side  by  side.  The  mail  train 
was  placed  in  the  rear  of  the  first  section,  and  a 
freight  train  was  run  onto  a  side  track  on  the 
bank  of  the  Conemaugh.  The  report  was  that  a 
bridge  had  been  washed  out,  carrying  away  one 
track  and  that  the  other  track  was  unsafe.  There 
was  a  rumor  also  that  the  reservoir  at  South  Fork 
might  break.  This  made  most  of  the  passengers 
uneasy,  and  they  kept  a  pretty  good  look-out  for 
information.  The  porters  of  the  Pullman  cars 
remained  at  their  posts,  and  comforted  the  pas- 
sengers with  the  assurance  that  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company  always  took  care  of  its  patrons. 
A  few  gentlemen  and  some  ladies  and  children 
quietly  seated  themselves,  apparently  contented. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  g^ 

One  gentleman,  who  was  ill,  had  his  berth  made 
up  and  retired,  although  advised  not  to  do  so. 

"  Soon  the  cry  came  that  the  water  in  the  reser- 
voir had  broken  down  the  barrier  and  was  sweep- 
ing down  the  valley.  Instantly  there  was  a  panic 
and  a  rush  for  the  mountain  side.  Children  were 
carried  and  women  assisted  by  a  few  who  kept 
cool  heads.  It  was  a  race  for  life.  There  was 
seen  the  black  head  of  the  flood,  now  the  monster 
Destruction,  whose  crest  was  high  raised  in  the 
air,  and  with  this  in  view  even  the  weak  found 
wings  for  their  feet.  No  words  can  adequately 
describe  the  terror  that  filled  every  breast,  or  the 
awful  power  manifested  by  the  flood.  The  round- 
house had  stalls  for  twenty-three  locomotives. 
There  were  eighteen  or  twenty  of  these  standing 
there  at  this  time.  There  was  an  ominous  crash, 
and  the  round-house  and  locomotives  dis- 
appeared. Everything  in  the  main  track  of  the 
flood  was  first  lifted  in  air  and  then  swallowed 
up  by  the  waters.  A  hundred  houses  were  swept 
away  in  a  few  minutes.  These  included  the 
hotel,  stores,  and  saloons  on  the  front  street  and 
residences  adjacent.  The  locomotive  of  one  of 
the  trains  was  struck  by  a  house  and  demolished. 
The  side  of  another  house  stopped  in  front  of 
another  locomotive  and  served  as  a  shield,  The 
rear  car  of  the  mail  train  swung  around  in  the 


84  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

rear  of  the  second  section  of  the  express  and 
turned  over  on  its  side.  Three  men  were  ob- 
served standing  upon  it  as  it  floated.  The  coupling 
broke,  and  the  car  moved  out  upon  the  bosom 
of  the  waters.  As  it  would  roll  the  men  would 
shift  their  position.  The  situation  was  desperate, 
and  they  were  given  up  for  lost.  Two  or  three 
hardy  men  seized  ropes  and  ran  along  the  moun- 
tain side  to  give  them  aid.  Later  it  was  reported 
that  the  men  escaped  over  some  driftwood  as 
their  car  was  carried  near  a  bank.  It  is  believed 
there  were  several  women  and  children  inside  the 
car.  Of  course  they  were  drowned.  As  the 
fugitives  on  the  mountain  side  witnessed  the  awful 
devastation  they  were  moved  as  never  before  in 
their  lives.  They  were  powerless  to  help  those 
seized  upon  by  the  waters  ;  the  despair  of  those 
who  had  lost  everything  in  life  and  the  wailing  of 
those  whose  relatives  or  friends  were  missing 
filled  their  breasts  with  unutterable  sorrow. 

"  The  rain  continued  to  fall  steadily,  but  shelter 
was  not  thought  of.  Few  passengers  saved  any- 
thing from  the  train,  so  sudden  was  the  cry  'Run 
for  your  lives,  the  reservoir  has  broken  !' 

"  Many  were  without  hats,  and  as  their  baggage 
was  left  on  the  trains,  they  were  without  the 
means  of  relieving  their  unhappy  condition.  The 
occupants  of  the  houses  still  standing  on  the  high 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  gc 

ground  threw  them  open  to  those  who  had  lost 
all,  and  to  the  passengers  of  the  train. 

"  During  the  height  of  the  flood,  the  spectators 
were  startled  by  the  sound  of  two  locomotive 
whistles  from  the  very  midst  of  the  waters.  Two 
engineers,  with  characteristic  courage,  had  re- 
mained at  their  posts,  and  while  there  was  destruc- 
tion on  every  hand,  and  apparently  no  escape  for 
them,  they  sounded  their  whistles.  This  they  re- 
peated at  intervals,  the  last  time  with  triumphant 
vigor,  as  the  waters  were  receding  from  the  sides 
of  their  locomotives.  By  half-past  five  the  force 
of  the  reservoir  water  had  been  spent  on  the 
village  of  Conemaugh,  and  the  Pullman  cars  and 
locomotive  of  the  second  section  remained  un- 
moved. This  was  because,  being  on  the  highest 
and  hardest  ground,  the  destructive  current  of 
the  reservoir  flood  had  passed  between  that  and 
the  mountain,  while  the  current  of  the  river  did 
not  eat  it  away.  But  the  other  trains  had  been 
destroyed.  A  solitary  locomotive  was  seen  em- 
bedded in  the  mud  where  the  round-house  had 
stood. 

"  As  the  greatest  danger  had  passed,  the  people 
of  Conemaugh  gave  their  thoughts  to  their  neigh- 
bors of  the  city  of  Johnstown.  Here  was  centred 
the  great  steel  and  iron  industries,  the  pride  of 
Western  Pennsylvania,  the  Cambria  Iron  Works 
being  known  everywhere.  Here  were  churches, 


86  THE  yo  HNS  TOWN  FLOOD. 

daily  newspapers,  banks,  dry-goods  houses,  ware- 
houses, and  the  comfortable  and  well-built  homes 
of  twelve  thousand  people.  In  the  contemplation 
of  the  irresistible  force  of  that  awful  flood,  gath- 
ering additional  momentum  as  it  swept  on  toward 
the  Gulf,  it  became  clear  that  the  city  must  be  de- 
stroyed, and  that  unless  the  inhabitants  had  tele- 
graphic notice  of  the  breaking  of  the  reservoir 
they  must  perish.  A  cry  of  horror  went  up  from 
the  hundreds  on  the  mountain-side,  and  a  few  in- 
stinctively turned  their  steps  toward  Johnstown. 
The  city  was  destroyed.  All  the  mills,  furnaces, 
manufactories,  the  many  and  varied  industries, 
the  banks,  the  residences,  all,  all  were  swallowed 
up  before  the  shadows  of  night  had  settled  down 
upon  the  earth.  Those  who  came  back  by  day- 
break said  that  from  five  thousand  to  eight 
thousand  had  been  drowned.  Our  hope  is  that 
this  is  an  exaggeration,  and  when  the  roll  is  called 
most  will  respond.  In  the  light  of  this  calamity, 
the  destruction  at  Conemaugh  sinks  into  insig- 
nificance." 

Mr.  George  Johnston,  a  lumber  merchant  of 
Pi ttsburg,  was  another  witness.  "I  had  gone  to 
Johnstown,"  he  says,  "  to  place  a  couple  of  orders. 
I  had  scarcely  reached  the  town,  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  when  I  saw  a  bulletin 
posted  up  in  front  of  the  telegraph  office,  around 
which  quite  a  crowd  of  men  had  congregated.  I 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  87 

pushed  my  way  up,  and  read  that  the  waters  were 
so  high  in  the  Conemaugh  that  it  was  feared 
the  three-mile  dam.  as  it  was  called,  would  give 
way.  I  know  enough  about  Johnstown  to  feel 
that  my  life  was  not  worth  a  snap  once  that  dam 
gave  way.  Although  the  Johnstown  people  did 
not  seem  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  warning,  I 
was  nervous  and  apprehensive.  I  had  several 
parties  to  see,  but  concluded  to  let  all  but  one  go 
until  some  later  day.  So  I  hurried  through  with 
my  most  urgent  transactions  and  started  for  the 
depot.  The  Conemaugh  had  then  gotten  so  high 
that  the  residents  of  the  low-lying  districts  had 
moved  into  upper  stories.  I  noticed  a  number  of 
wagons  filled  with  furniture  hurrying  through 
the  streets.  A  few  families,  either  apprehensive  of 
the  impending  calamity  or  driven  from  their  houses 
by  the  rising  waters,  had  started  for  the  surround- 
ing hills.  Johnstown,  you  know,  lies  in  a  narrow 
valley,  and  lies  principally  on  the  V-shaped  point 
between  the  converging  river  and  Stony  Creek. 
"  I  was  just  walking  up  the  steps  to  the  depot 
when  I  heard  a  fearful  roar  up  the  valley.  It 
sounded  at  first  like  a  heavy  train  of  cars,  but  soon 
became  too  loud  and  terrible  for  that.  I  boarded 
a  train,  and  as  I  sat  at  the  car  window  a  sight 
broke  before  my  view  that  I  will  remember  to  my 
dying  day.  Away  up  the  Conemaugh  came  a 
yellow  wall,  whose  crest  was  white  and  frothy.  I 


88  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

rushed  for  the  platform  of  the  car,  not  knowing 
what  I  did,  and  just  then  the  train  began  to  move. 
Terrified  as  I  was,  I  remember  feeling  that  I  was 
in  the  safest  place  and  I  sank  back  in  a  seat. 
When  I  looked  out  again  what  had  been  the  busy 
mill  yards  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Company  was  a 
yellow,  turbulent  sea,  on  whose  churned  currents 
houses  and  barns  were  riding  like  ships  in  a  brook. 
The  water  rushing  in  upon  the  molten  metal  in 
the  mills  had  caused  deafening  explosions,  which, 
coupled  with  the  roar  and  grinding  of  the  flood, 
made  a  terrifying  din.  Turning  to  the  other  side 
and  looking  on  down  the  valley,  I  saw  the  muddy 
water  rushing  through  the  main  streets  of  the  town. 
I  could  see  men  and  horses  floundering  about 
almost  within  call.  House-tops  were  being  filled 
with  white-faced  people  who  clung  to  each  other 
and  looked  terror-stricken  upon  the  rising  flood. 

"  It  had  all  come  so  quickly  that  none  of  them 
seemed  to  realize  what  had  happened.  The  con- 
ductor of  my  train  had  been  pulling  frantically  at 
the  bell-rope,  and  the  train  went  spinning  across 
the  bridge.  I  sat  in  my  seat  transfixed  with 
horror.  Houses  were  spinning  through  beneath 
the  bridge,  and  I  did  not  know  at  what  moment 
the  structure  would  melt  away  under  the  train. 
The  conductor  kept  tugging  at  the  bell- rope  and 
the  train  shot  ahead  again.  We  seemed  to  fairly 
leap  over  the  yellow  torrents,  and  I  wondered  for 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  gn 

an  instant  whether  we  had  not  left  the  rails  and 
were  flying  through  the  air.  My  heart  gave  a 
bound  of  relief  when  we  dashed  into  the  forest 
on  the  hillside  opposite  the  doomed  town.  As 
the  train  sped  along  at  a  rate  of  speed  that 
made  me  think  the  engineer  had  gone  mad,  I  took 
one  look  back  upon  the  valley.  What  a  sight  it 
was!  The  populous  valley  for  miles  either  way 
was  a  seething,  roaring  cauldron,  through  whose 
boiling  surface  roofs  of  houses  and  the  stand- 
pipes  of  mills  protruded.  The  water  was  fairly 
piling  up  in  a  well  farther  up,  and  I  saw  the  worst 
had  not  yet  come.  Then  I  turned  my  eyes  away 
from  the  awful  sight  and  tried  not  to  even  think 
until  Pittsburg  was  reached. 

"  I  cannot  see  how  it  is  possible  for  less  than 
five  thousand  lives  to  have  been  sacrificed  in 
Johnstown  alone.  At  least  two-thirds  of  the  town 
was  swept  away.  The  water  came  so  quickly  that 
escape  from  the  low  districts  was  impossible.  Peo- 
ple retreated  to  the  upper  floors  of  their  residences 
and  stores  until  the  water  had  gotten  too  deep  to 
allow  their  escape.  When  the  big  flood  came  the 
houses  were  picked  up  like  pasteboard  boxes  or 
collapsed  like  egg-shells.  The  advance  of  the 
flood  was  black  with  houses,  logs,  and  other  debris, 
so  that  it  struck  Johnstown  with  the  solid  force  of 
a  battering-ram.  None  but  eye-witnesses  of  the 
flood  can  comprehend  its  size  and  awfulness  as  it 


£O  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

came  tumbling,  roaring  down  upon  the  unprotected 
town." 

The  appearance  of  the  flood  at  Sang  Hollow, 
some  miles  below  Johnstown,  is  thus  pictured  by 
C.  W.  Linthicum,  of  Baltimore : 

"  My  train  left  Pittsburg  on  Friday  morning 
for  Johnstown.  The  train  was  due  at  Sang 
Hollow  at  two  minutes  after  four,  but  was 
five  minutes  late.  At  Sang  Hollow,  just 
as  we  were  about  to  pull  out,  we  heard 
that  the  flood  was  coming.  Looking  ahead, 
up  the  valley,  we  saw  an  immense  wall  of 
water  thirty  feet  high,  raging,  roaring,  rush- 
ing toward  us.  The  engineer  reversed  his  engine 
and  rushed  back  to  the  hills  at  full  speed,  and  we 
barely  escaped  the  waters.  We  ran  back  three 
hundred  yards,  and  the  flood  swept  by,  tearing  up 
track,  telegraph  poles,  trees,  and  houses.  Super- 
intendent Pitcairn  was  on  the  train.  We  all  got 
out  and  tried  to  save  the  floating  people.  Taking 
the  bell  cord  we  formed  a  line  and  threw  the 
rope  out,  thus  saving  seven  persons.  We  could 
have  saved  more,  but  many  were  afraid  to  let  go  of 
the  debris.  It  was  an  awful  sight.  The  immense 
volume  of  water  was  roaring  along,  whirling  over 
huge  rocks,  dashing  against  the  banks  and  leap- 
ing high  into  the  air,  and  this  seething  flood  was 
strewn  with  timber,  trunks  of  trees,  parts  of 
houses,  and  hundreds  of  human  beings,  cattle,  and 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  93 

almost  every  living  animal.  The  fearful  peril  of 
the  living  was  not  more  awful  than  the  horrors  of 
hundreds  of  distorted,  bleeding  corpses  whirling 
along  the  avalanche  of  death.  We  counted  one 
hundred  and  seven  people  floating  by  and  dead 
without  number.  A  section  of  roof  came  by  on 
which  were  sitting  a  woman  and  girl.  A  man 
named  C.  W.  Heppenstall,  of  Pittsburg,  waded 
and  swam  to  the  roof.  He  brought  the  girl  in 
first  and  then  the  woman.  They  told  us  they 
were  not  relatives.  The  woman  had  lost  her 
husband  and  four  children,  and  the  girl  her  father 
and  mother,  and  entire  family.  A  little  boy  came 
by  with  his  mother.  Both  were  as  calm  as  could 
be,  and  the  boy  was  apparently  trying  to  comfort 
the  mother.  They  passed  unheeding  our 
proffered  help,  and  striking  the  bridge  below, 
went  down  into  the  vortex  like  lead. 

"  One  beautiful  girl  came  by  with  her  hands 
raised  in  prayer,  and,  although  we  shouted  to  her 
and  ran  along  the  bank,  she  paid  no  attention. 
We  could  have  saved  her  if  she  had  caught  the 
rope.  An  old  man  and  his  wife  whom  we  saved 
said  that  eleven  persons  started  from  Cambria 
City  on  the  roof  with  him,  but  that  the  others  had 
dropped  off. 

"  At  about  eight  P.  M.  we  started  for  New  Flor- 
ence. All  along  the  river  we  saw  corpses  without 
number  caught  in  the  branches  of  trees  and  wedged 


g4  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

in  corners  in  the  banks.  A  large  sycamore  tree 
in  the  river  between  Sang  Hollow  and  New 
Florence  seemed  to  draw  into  it  nearly  all  who 
floated  down,  and  they  went  under  the  surface  at 
its  roots  like  lead.  When  the  waters  subsided 
two  hundred  and  nine  bodies  were  found  at  the  root 
of  this  tree.  All  night  the  living  and  the  dead 
floated  by  New  Florence.  At  Pittsburg  seventy- 
eight  bodies  were  found  on  Saturday,  and  as  many 
more  were  seen  floating  by.  Hundreds  of  people 
from  ill-fated  Johnstown  are  wandering  homeless 
and  starving  on  the  mountain-side.  Very  few 
saved  anything,  and  I  saw  numbers  going  down 
the  stream  naked.  The  suffering  within  the  next 
few  days  will  be  fearful  unless  prompt  relief  is  ex- 
tended." 

H.  M.  Bennett  and  S.  W.  Keltz,  engineer  and 
conductor  of  engine  No.  1,165,  an  extra  freight, 
which  happened  to  be  lying  at  South  Fork  when 
the  dam  broke,  tell  a  graphic  story  of  their  won- 
derful flight  and  escape  on  the  locomotive  before 
the  advancing  flood.  At  the  time  mentioned 
Bennett  and  Keltz  were  in  the  signal  tower  at 
that  point  awaiting  orders.  The  fireman  and  flag- 
man were  on  the  engine,  and  two  brakemen  were 
asleep  in  the  caboose.  Suddenly  the  men  in  the 
tower  heard  a  loud  booming  roar  in  the  valley 
above  them.  They  looked  in  the  direction  of  the 
sound,  and  were  almost  transfixed  with  horror  to 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  95 

see  two  miles  above  them  a  huge  black  wall  of 
water,  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  height, 
rushing  down  the  valley  upon  them. 

One  look  the  fear-stricken  men  gave  the  awful 
sight,  and  then  they  made  a  rush  for  the  locomo- 
tive, at  the  same  time  giving  the  alarm  to  the 
sleeping  brakemen  in  the  caboose  with  loud  cries, 
but  with  no  avail.  It  was  impossible  to  aid  them 
further,  however,  so  they  cut  the  engine  loose 
from  the  train,  and  the  engineer,  with  one  wild 
wrench,  threw  the  lever  wide  open,  and  they  were 
away  on  a  mad  race  for  life.  For  a  moment  it 
seemed  that  they  would  not  receive  momentum 
enough  to  keep  ahead  of  the  flood,  and  they  cast 
one  despairing  glance  back.  Then  they  could 
see  the  awful  deluge  approaching  in  its  might. 
On  it  came,  rolling  and  roaring  like  some  Titanic 
monster,  tossing  and  tearing  houses,  sheds,  and 
trees  in  its  awful  speed  as  if  they  were  mere  toys. 
As  they  looked  they  saw  the  two  brakemen  rush 
out  of  the  cab,  but  they  had  not  time  to  gather 
the  slightest  idea  of  the  cause  of  their  doom 
before  they,  the  car,  and  signal  tower  were  tossed 
high  in  the  air,  to  disappear  forever  in  engulfing 
water. 

Then  with  a  shudder,  as  if  at  last  it  compre- 
hended its  peril,  the  engine  leaped  forward  like  a 
thing  of  life,  and  speeded  down  the  valley.  But 
fast  as  it  went,  the  flood  gained  upon  them.  Hope, 


96  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

however,  was  in  the  ascendant,  for  if  they  could 
but  get  across  the  bridge  below  the  track  would 
lean  toward  the  hillside  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
would  be  comparatively  safe.  In  a  few  breathless 
moments  the  shrieking  locomotive  whizzed  around 
the  curve  and  they  were  in  sight  of  the  bridge. 
Horror  upon  horrors !  Ahead  of  them  was  a 
freight  train,  with  the  rear  end  almost  on  the 
bridge,  and  to  get  across  was  simply  impossible ! 
Engineer  Bennett  then  reversed  the  lever  and 
succeeded  in  checking  the  engine  as  they  glided 
across  the  bridge,  and  then  they  jumped  and  ran 
for  their  lives  up  the  hillside,  as  the  bridge  and 
tender  of  the  locomotive  they  had  been  on  were 
swept  away  like  a  bundle  of  matches  in  the  tor- 
rent. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THERE  have  been  many  famous  rides  in  his- 
tory. Longfellow  has  celebrated  that  of 
Paul  Revere.  Read  has  sung  of  Sheridan's.  John 
Boyle  O'Reilly  has  commemorated  in  graceful 
verse  the  splendid  achievement  of  Collins  Graves, 
who,  when  the  Williamsb.tirg-  dam  in  Massachu- 

o 

setts  broke,  dashed  down  the  valley  on  horseback 
in  the  van  of  the  flood,  warning  the  people  and 
saving  countless  lives : 

"  He  draws  no  rein,  but  he  shakes  the  street 
With  a  shout  and  a  ring  of  the  galloping  feet, 
And  this  the  cry  that  he  flings  to  the  wind : 
To  the  hills  for  your  lives  !  The  flood  is  behind  1' 

"  In  front  of  the  roaring  flood  is  heard 
The  galloping  horse  and  the  warning  word. 
Thank  God  !  The  brave  man's  life  is  spared  ! 
From  Williamsburg  town  he  nobly  dared 
To  race  with  the  flood  and  take  the  road 
In  front  of  the  terrible  swath  it  mowed. 
For  miles  it  thundered  and  crashed  hehind, 
But  he  looked  ahead  with  a  steadfast  mind  : 
'  They  must  be  warned,'  was  all  he  said, 
As  away  on  his  terrible  ride  he  sped." 

97 


Q\,  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

There  were  two  such  heroes  in  the  Conemaugh 
Valley.  Let  their  deeds  be  told  and  their  names 
held  in  everlasting  honor.  One  was  John  G. 
Parke,  a  young  civil  engineer  of  Philadelphia,  a 
nephew  of  the  General  John  G.  Parke  who  com- 
manded a  corps  of  the  Union  Army.  He  was  the 
first  to  discover  the  impending  break  in  the  South 
Fork  dam,  and  jumping  into  the  saddle  he  started  at 
breakneck  speed  down  the  valley  shouting :  "  The 
dam;  the  dam  is  breaking;  run  for  your  lives!" 
Hundreds  of  people  were  saved  by  this  timely 
warning.  Reaching  South  Fork  Station,  young 
Parke  telegraphed  tidings  of  the  coming  inunda- 
tion to  Johnstown,  ten  miles  below,  fully  an  hour 
before  the  flood  came  in  "a  solid  wall  of  water  thirty 
feet  high"  to  drown  the  mountain-bound  town. 

Some  heeded  the  note  of  alarm  at  Johnstown ; 
others  had  heard  it  before,  doubted,  and  waited 
until  death  overtook  them.  Young  Parke  climbed 
up  into  the  mountains  when  the  water  was  almost 
at  his  horse's  heels,  and  saw  the  deluge  pass. 

Less  fortunate  was  Daniel  Peyton,  a  rich  young 
man  of  Johnstown.  He  heard  at  Conemaugh  the 
message  sent  down  from  South  Fork  by  the 
gallant  Parke.  In  a  moment  he  sprang  into  the 
saddle.  Mounted  on  a  grand,  big,  bay  horse,  he 
came  riding  down  the  pike  which  passes  through 
Conemaugh  to  Johnstown,  like  some  angel  of 
wrath  of  old,  shouting  his  warning  : 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  99 

"Run  for  your  lives  to  the  hills  !  Run  to  the 
hills  !" 

The  people  crowded  out  of  their  houses  along 
the  thickly  settled  streets  awe-struck  and  wonder- 
ing. No  one  knew  the  man,  and  some  thought 
he  was  a  maniac  and  laughed.  On  and  on,  at  a 
deadly  pace,  he  rode,  and  shrilly  rang  out  his 
awful  cry.  In  a  few  moments,  however,  there  came 
a  cloud  of  ruin  down  the  broad  streets,  down  the 
narrow  alleys,  grinding,  twisting,  hurling,  over- 
turning, crashing — annihilating  the  weak  and  the 
strong.  It  was  the  charge  of  the  flood,  wearing 
its  coronet  of  ruin  and  devastation,  which  grew  at 
every  Instant  of  its  progress.  Forty  feet  high, 
some  say,  thirty  according  to  others,  was  this  sea, 
and  it  travelled  with  a  swiftness  like  that  which  lay 
in  the  heels  of  Mercury. 

On  and  on  raced  the  rider,  on  and  on  rushed 
the  wave.  Dozens  of  people  took  heed  of  the 
warning  and  ran  up  to  the  hills. 

Poor,  faithful  rider !  It  was  an  unequal  contest. 
Just  as  he  turned  to  cross  the  railroad  bridge  the 
mighty  wall  fell  upon  him,  and  horse,  rider,  and 
bridge  all  went  out  into  chaos  together. 

A  few  feet  further  on  several  cars  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  train  from  Pittsburg  were  caught 
up  and  hurried  into  the  cauldron,  and  the  heart  of 
the  town  was  reached. 


I  CO  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

The  hero  had  turned  neither  to  the  right  nor 
left  for  himself,  but  rode  on  to  death  for  his  towns- 
men. When  found  Peyton  was  lying  face  up- 
ward beneath  the  remnants  of  massive  oaks, 
while  hard  by  lay  the  gallant  horse  that  had  so 
nobly  done  all  in  his  power  for  humanity  before 
he  started  to  seek  a  place  of  safety  for  himself. 

Mrs.  Ogle,  the  manager  of  the  Western  Union 
telegraph  office,  who  died  at  her  post,  will  go 
down  in  history  as  a  heroine  of  the  highest  order. 
Notwithstanding  the  repeated  notifications  which 
she  received  to  get  out  of  reach  of  the  ap- 
proaching danger,  she  stood  by  the  instruments 
with  unflinching  loyalty  and  undaunted  courage, 
sending  words  of  warning  to  those  in  danger  in 
the  valley  below.  When  every  station  in  the 
path  of  the  coming  torrent  had  been  warned,  she 
wired  her  companion  at  South  Fork :  "  This  is 
my  last  message,"  and  as  such  it  shall  always  be 
remembered  as  her  last  words  on  earth,  for  at 
that  very  moment  the  torrent  engulfed  her  and 
bore  her  from  her  post  on  earth  to  her  post  of 
honor  in  the  great  beyond. 

Miss  Nina  Speck,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  David 
Speck,  pastor  of  the  First  United  Brethren 
Church,  of  Chambersburg,  was  in  Johnstown  vis- 
iting her  brother  and  narrowly  escaped  death  in 
the  flood.  She  arrived  home  clad  in  nondescript 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  101 

clothing,  which  had  been  furnished  by  an  old 
colored  washerwoman,  and  told  the  following 
story  of  the  flood : 

"Our  house  was  in  Kernsville,  a  part  of  Johns- 
town through  which  Stony  Creek  ran.  Although 
we  were  a  square  from  the  creek,  the  back-water 
from  the  stream  had  flooded  the  streets  in  the 
morning  and  was  up  to  our  front  porch.  At  four 
o'clock  on  Friday  afternoon  we  were  sitting  on 
the  front  porch  watching  the  flood,  when  we  heard 
a  roar  as  of  a  tornado  or  mighty  conflagra- 
tion. 

"  We  rushed  up-stairs  and  got  outupon  the  bay- 
window.  There  an  awful  sight  met  our  eyes. 
Down  the  Conemaugh  Valley  was  advancing  a 
mighty  wall  of  water  and  mist  with  a  terrible  roar. 
Before  it  were  rolling  houses  and  buildings  of  all 
kinds,  tossing  over  and  over.  We  thought  it  was 
a  cyclone,  the  roar  sounding  like  a  tempest  among 
forest  trees.  We  started  down-stairs  and  out 
through  the  rear  of  the  house  to  escape  to  the 
hillside  near  by.  But  before  we  could  get  there 
the  water  was  up  to  our  necks  and  we  could  make 
no  progress.  We  turned  back  and  were  literally 
dashed  by  the  current  into  the  house,  which  began 
to  move  off  as  soon  as  were  in  it  again.  From 
the  second-story  window  I  saw  a  young  man 
drifting  toward  us.  I  broke  the  glass  from  the 
frames  with  my  hands  and  helped  him  in,  and  in 


IO2  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

a  few  minutes  more  I  pulled  in  an  old  man,  a 
neighbor,  who  had  been  sick. 

"  Our  house  moved  rapidly  down  the  stream 
and  fortunately  lodged  against  a  strong  building. 
The  water  forced  us  out  of  the  second-story  up 
into  the  attic.  Then  we  heard  a  lot  of  people  on 
our  roof  begging  us  for  God's  sake  to  let  them  in. 
I  broke  through  the  roof  with  a  bed-slat  and 
pulled  them  in.  Soon  we  had  thirteen  in  all 
crouched  in  the  attic. 

"  Our  house  was  rocking,  and  every  now  and 
then  a  building  would  crash  against  us.  Every 
moment  we  thought  we  would  go  down.  The 
roofs  of  all  the  houses  drifting  by  us  were  covered 
with  people,  nearly  all  praying  and  some  singing 
hymns,  and  now  and  then  a  house  would  break 
apart  and  all  would  go  down.  On  Saturday  at 
noon  we  were  rescued,  making  our  way  from  one 
building  to  the  next  by  crawling  on  narrow  planks. 
I  counted  hundreds  of  bodies  lying  in  the 
debris,  most  of  them  covered  over  with  earth  and 
showing  only  the  outlines  of  the  form." 

Opposite  the  northern  wall  of  the  Methodist 
Church  the  flood  struck  the  new  Queen  Anne 
house  of  John  Fronheiser,  a  superintendent  in  the 
Cambria  Works.  He  was  at  home,  as  most  men 
were  that  day,  trying  to  calm  the  fears  of  the 
women  and  children  of  the  family  during  the  ear- 
lier flood.  Down  went  the  front  of  the  new  Oueen 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Anne  house,  and  into  the  wreck  of  it  fell  the  Su- 
perintendent, two  elder  children,  a  girl  and  a  boy. 
As  the  flood  passed  he  heard  the  boy  cry :  "  Don't 
let  me  drown,  papa  ;  break  my  arms  first !"  and 
the  girl :  "  Cut  off  my  legs,  but  don't  let  me 
drown  !" 

And  as  he  heard  them,  came  a  wilder  cry  from  his 
wife  drifting  down  with  the  current,  to  "Save  the 
baby."  But  neither  wife  nor  baby  could  be  saved, 
and  boy  and  girl  stayed  in  the  wreck  until  the 
water  went  down  and  they  were  extricated. 

Horror  piled  on  horror  is  the  story  from  Johns- 
town down  to  the  viaduct.  Horror  shot  through 
with  intense  lights  of  heroism,  and  here  and  there 
pervaded  with  gleams  of  humor.  It  is  known  that 
one  girl  sang  as  she  was  whirled  through  the 
flood,  "  Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul,"  until  the  water 
stopped  her  singing  forever.  It  is  known  that 
Elvie  Duncan,  daughter  of  the  Superintendent  of 
the  Street  Car  Company,  when  her  family  was 
separated  and  she  was  swept  away  with  her  baby 
sister,  kept  the  little  thing  alive  by  chewing  bread 
and  feeding  it  to  her.  It  is  known  that  John 
Dibart,  banker,  died  as  helplessly  in  his  splendid 
house  as  did  that  solitary  prisoner  in  his  cell ; 
that  the  pleasant  park,  with  the  chain  fence  about 
it,  was  so  completely  annihilated  that  not  even  one- 
root  of  the  many  shade  trees  wjthin  its  boundaries 
remains.  It  is  known  also  that  to  a  leaden-footed 


I O4  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  0 OD. 

messenger  boy,  who  was  ambling  along  Main 
Street,  fear  lent  wings  to  lift  him  into  the  Tribune 
office  in  the  second  story  of  the  Post  Office,  and 
that  the  Rosensteels,  general  storekeepers  of 
Woodvale,  were  swept  into  the  windows  of  their 
friends,  the  Cohens,  retail  storekeepers  of  Main 
Street,  Johnstown,  two  miles  from  where  they 
started.  It  is  known  that  the  Episcopal  Church,  at 
Locust  and  Market  Streets,  went  down  like  a 
house  of  cards,  or  as  the  German  Lutheran  had 
gone,  in  the  path  of  the  flood,  and  that  Rector 
Diller,  his  wife  and  child,  and  adopted  daughter 
went  with  it,  while  of  their  next-door  neighbors, 
Frank  Daly,  of  the  Cambria  Company,  and  his 
mother,  the  son  was  drowned  and  the  mother,  not 
so  badly  hurt  in  body  as  in  spirit,  died  three  nights 
after  in  the  Mercy  Hospital,  Pittsburg^ 

But  while  the  flood  was  driving  people  to  silent 
death  down  the  valley,  there  was  a  sound  of  lam- 
entation on  the  hills.  Hundreds  who  had  climbed 
there  to  be  out  of  reach  during  the  morning's 
freshet  saw  the  city  in  the  valley  disappearing, 
and  their  cries  rose  hio-h  above  the  crash  and  the 

o 

roar.  Little  time  had  eyes  to  watch  or  lips  to  cry. 
O'Brien,  the  disabled  Millville  storekeeper,  was 
one  of  the  crowd  in  the  park.  He  saw  a  town 
before  him,  then  a  mountain  of  timber  approach- 
ing-, then  a  dizzy  swirl  of  men  at  the  viaduct,  a 
breaking  of  the  embankment  to  the  east  of  it,  the 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  ie)C- 

forming  of  a  whirlpool  there  that  ate  up  homes 
and  those  that  dwelt  in  them,  as  a  cauldron  of 
molten  iron  eats  up  the  metal  scraps  that  are 
thrown  in  to  cool  it,  and  then  a  silence  and  a 
subsidence. 

It  was  a  quarter  of  four  o'clock.  At  half-past 
three  there  had  been  a  Johnstown.  Now  there 
was  none. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

VOLUMES  might  be  written  of  the  sufferings 
endured  and  valor  exhibited  by  the  survi- 
vors of  the  flood,  or  of  the  heart-rending  grief 
with  which  so  many  were  stricken.  At  Johnstown 
an  utterly  wretched  woman  named  Mrs.  Fenn 
stood  by  a  muddy  pool  of  water  trying  to  find 
some  trace  of  a  once  happy  home.  She  was  half 
crazed  with  grief,  and  her  eyes  were  red  and 
swollen.  As  a  correspondent  stepped  to  her  side 
she  raised  her  pale,  haggard  face  and  remarked: 
"  They  are  all  gone.  O  God !  be  merciful  to 
them  !  My  husband  and  my  seven  dear  little 
children  have  been  swept  down  with  the  flood,  and 
I  am  left  alone.  We  were  driven  by  the  awful 
flood  into  the  garret,  but  the  water  followed  us 
there.  Inch  by  inch  it  kept  rising,  until  our  heads 
were  crushing  against  the  roof.  It  was  death  to 
remain.  So  I  raised  a  window,  and  one  by  one, 
placed  my  darlings  on  some  driftwood,  trusting  to 
the  great  Creator.  As  I  liberated  the  last  one, 
my  sweet  little  boy,  he  looked  at  me  and  said : 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

'  Mamma,  you  always  told  me  that  the  Lord  would 
care  for  me  ;  will  He  look  after  me  now  ?'  I  saw 
him  drift  away  with  his  loving  face  turned  toward 
me,  and,  with  a  prayer  on  my  lips  for  his  deliver- 
ance, he  passed  from  sight  forever.  The  next 
moment  the  roof  crashed  in,  and  I  floated  outside, 
to  be  rescued  fifteen  hours  later  from  the  roof  of 
a  house  in  Kernsville.  If  I  could  only  find  one  of 
my  darlings  I  could  bow  to  the  will  of  God,  but 
they  are  all  gone.  I  have  lost  everything  on  earth 
now  but  my  .life,  and  I  will  return  to  my  old  Vir- 
ginia home  and  lay  me  down  for  my  last  great 
sleep." 

A  handsome  woman,  with  hair  as  black  as  a 
raven's  wing,  walked  through  the  depot  where  a 
dozen  or  more  bodies  were  awaiting-  burial.  Pass- 

o 

ing  from  one  to  another,  she  finally  lifted  the 
paper  covering  from  the  face  of  a  woman,  young, 
and  with  traces  of  beauty  showing  through  the 
stains  of  muddy  water,  and  with  a  cry  of  anguish 
she  reeled  backward  to  be  caught  by  a  rugged 
man  who  chanced  to  be  passing.  In  a  moment 
or  so  she  ha':1  calmed  herself  sufficiently  to  take 
one  mor^  look  at  the  features  of  her  dead.  She 
stood  gazing  at  the  corpse  as  if  dumb.  Finally, 
turning  away  with  another  wild  burst  of  grief,  she 
said :  "  And  her  beautiful  hair  all  matted  and  her 
sweet  face  so  bruised  and  stained  with  mud  and 
water !"  The  dead  woman  was  the  sister  of  the 


log  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

mourner.     The  body  was  placed  in  a  coffin  a  few 
minutes  later  and  sent  away  to  its  narrow  house. 

A  woman  was  seen  to  smile,  one  morning  just 
after  the  catastrophe,  as  she  came  down  the  steps 
of  Prospect  Hill,  at  Johnstown.  She  ran  down 
lightly,  turning  up  toward  the  stone  bridge.  She 
passed  the  little  railroad  station  where  the  under- 
takers were  at  work  embalming  the  dead,  and 
walked  slowly  until  she  got  opposite  the  station. 
Then  she  stopped  and  danced  a  few  steps.  There 
was  but  a  small  crowd  there.  The  woman  raised 
her  hands  above  her  head  and  sang.  She  be- 
came quiet  and  then  suddenly  burst  into  a  fren- 
zied fit  of  weeping  and  beat  her  forehead  with 
her  hands.  She  tore  her  dress,  which  was  already 
in  rags. 

"  I  shall  go  crazy,"  she  screamed,  "  if  they  do 
not  find  his  body." 

The  poor  woman  could  not  go  crazy,  as  her 
mind  had  been  already  shattered. 

"  He  was  a  good  man,"  she  went  on,  while  the 
onlookers  listened  pityingly.  "  I  loved  him  and 
he  loved  me." 

"  Where  is  he  ?"  she  screamed.  "  I  must  find 
him." 

And  she  started  at  the  top  of  her  speed  down 
the  track  toward  the  river.  Some  men  caught 
her.  She  struggled  desperately  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  then  fainted. 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD.  Ill 

Her  name  was  Eliza  Adams,  and  she  was  a 
bride  of  but  two  months.  Her  husband  was  a 
foreman  at  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  and  was 
drowned. 

The  body  of  a  beautiful  young  girl  of  twenty 
was  found  wedged  in  a  mass  of  ruins  just  below  * 
the  Cambria  Iron  Works.  She  was  taken  out 
and  laid  on  the  damp  grass.  She  was  tall,  slen- 
der, of  well-rounded  form,  clad  in  a  long  red  wrap- 
per, with  lace  at  her  throat  and  wrists.  Her  feet 
were  encased  in  pretty  embroidered  slippers. 
Her  face  was  a  study  for  an  artist.  Features  clear 
cut  as  though  chiseled  from  Parian  marble ;  and, 
strangely  enough,  they  bore  not  the  slightest  dis- 
figurement, and  had  not  the  swelled  and  puffed 
appearance  that  was  present  in  nearly  all  the  other 
drowned  victims.  A  smile  rested  on  her  lips. 
Her  hair,  which  had  evidently  been  golden,  was 
matted  with  mud  and  fell  in  heavy  masses  to  her 
waist. 

"  Does  any  one  know  her?"  was  asked  of  the 
silent  group  that  had  gathered  around. 

No  one  did,  and  she  was  carried  to  the  im- 
provised morgue  in  the  school-house,  and  now  fills 
a  grave  as  one  of  the  "  unidentified  dead." 

Miss  Rose  Clark  was  fastened  in  the  debris  at 
the  railroad  bridge,  at  Johnstown.  The  force  of 
the  water  had  torn  all  of  her  garments  off  and 
pinned  her  left  leg  below  the  water  between  two 


I  i  2  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

beams.  She  was  more  calm  than  the  men  who 
were  trying  to  rescue  her.  The  flames  were 
coming  nearer,  and  the  intense  heat  scorching  her 
bare  skin.  She  begged  the  men  to  cut  off  the 
imprisoned  leg.  Finally  half  of  the  men  turned 
and  fought  the  fire,  while  the  rest  endeavored  to 
fescue  Miss  Clark.  After  six  hours  of  hard  work, 
and  untold  suffering  by  the  brave  little  lady  she 
was  taken  from  the  ruins  in  a  dead  faint.  She 
was  one  mass  of  bruises,  from  her  breast  to  her 
knees,  and  her  left  arm  and  leg  were  broken. 

Just  below  Johnstown,  on  the  Conemaugh, 
three  women  were  working  on  the  ruins  of  what 
had  been  their  home.  An  old  arm-chair  was 
taken  from  the  ruins  by  the  men.  When  one  of 
the  women  saw  the  chair,  it  brought  back  a  wealth 
of  memory,  probably  the  first  since  the  flood 
occurred,  and  throwing  herself  on  her  knees  on 
the  wreck  she  gave  way  to  a  flood  of  tears. 

"Where  in  the  name  of  God,"  she  sobbed, 
"  did  you  get  that  chair  ?  It  was  mine — no,  I 
don't  want  it.  Keep  it  and  find  for  me,  if  you  can, 
my  album.  In  it  are  the  faces  of  my  husband  and 
little  girl." 

Patrick  Downs  was  a  worker  in  one  of  the 
mills  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Works.  He  had  a  wife 
and  a  fourteen-year-old  daughter,  Jessie  Downs, 
who  was  a  great  favorite  with  the  sturdy,  hard- 
handed  fellow-workmen  of  her  father. 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD.  \  \  $ 

She  was  of  rare  beauty  and  sweetness.  Her 
waving,  golden-yellow  hair,  brushed  away  from  a 
face  of  wondrous  whiteness,  was  confined  by  a 
ribbon  at  the  neck.  Lustrous  Irish  blue  eyes 
lighted  up  the  lovely  face  and  ripe,  red  lips  parted 
in  smiles  for  the  workmen  in  the  mills,  every  one 
of  whom  was  her  lover. 

Jessie  was  in  the  mill  when  the  flood  struck  the 
town,  and  had  not  been  seen  since  till  the  work 
of  cleaning  up  the  Cambria  plant  was  begun  in 
earnest.  Then,  in  the  cellar  of  the  building  a 
workman  spied  a  little  shoe  protruding  from  a 
closely  packed  bed  of  sandy  mud.  In  a  few 
moments  the  body  of  Jessie  Downs  was  uncov- 
ered. 

The  workmen  who  had  been  in  such  scenes  as 
this  for  six  days  stood  about  with  uncovered  heads 
and  sobbed  like  babies.  The  body  had  not  been 
bruised  nor  hurt  in  any  way,  the  features  being 
composed  as  if  in  sleep. 

The  men  gathered  up  the  body  of  their  little 
sweetheart  and  were  carrying  it  through  the  town 
on  a  stretcher  when  they  met  poor  Patrick  Downs. 
He  gazed  upon  the  form  of  his  baby,  but  never 
a  tear  was  in  his  eye,  and  he  only  thanked  God 
that  she  had  not  suffered  in  contest  with  the  angry 
waves. 

He  had  but  a  moment  before  identified  the 
body  of  his  wife  among  the  dead  recovered,  and 


I  I  4  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

the  mother  and  child  were  laid  away  together  in 
one  grave  on  Grove  Hill,  and  the  father  resumed 
work  with  the  others. 

Dr.  Lowman  is  one  of  the  most  prominent  phy- 
sicians of  Western  Pennsylvania.  His  residence 
in  Johnstown  was  protected  partially  from  thei 
avalanche  of  water  by  the  Methodist  Church, 
which  is  a  large  stone  structure.  Glancing  up- 
stream, the  Doctor  saw  advancing  what  seemed  to 
be  a  huge  mountain.  Grasping  the  situation,  he 
ran  in  and  told  the  family  to  get  to  the  top  floors 
as  quickly  as  possible.  They  had  scarcely  reached 
the  second  floor  when  the  water  was  pouring  into 
the  windows.  They  went  higher  up,  and  the 
water  followed  them,  but  it  soon  reached  its 
extreme  height. 

While  the  family  were  huddled  in  the  third 
story  the  Doctor  looked  out  and  saw  a  young  girl 
floating  toward  the  window  on  a  door.  He 
smashed  the  glass,  and,  at  the  great  risk  of  his 
Own  life,  succeeded  in  hauling  the  door  toward 
him  and  lifting  the  girl  through  the  window.  She 
had  not  been  there  long  when  one  corner  of  the 
building  gave  way  and  she  became  frightened. 
She  insisted  on  taking  a  shutter  and  floating  down- 
stream. In  vain  did  the  Doctor  try  to  persuade 
her  to  forego  such  a  suicidal  attempt.  She  said 
that  she  was  a  good  swimmer,  and  that,  once  out 
in  the  water,  she  had  no  fears  for  her  ultimate 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  \  \  5 

safety.  Resisting  all  entreaties  and  taking  a  shut- 
ter from  the  window,  she  plunged  out  into  the 
surging  waters,  and  'has  not  since  been  heard 
from. 

When  the  girl  deserted  the  house,  Dr.  Lowman 
and  his  family  made  their  way  to  the  roof.  While 
up  there  another  corner  of  the  house  gave  way. 
After  waiting  for  ^everal  hours,  the  intervening 
space  between  the  bank  building  and  the  dwelling 
became  filled  with  drift.  The  Doctor  gathered 
his  family  around  him,  and  after  a  perilous  walk 
they  all  reached  the  objective  point  in  safety. 
Dr.  Lowman's  aged  father  was  one  of  the  party. 
When  his  family  was  safe  Dr.  Lowman  started  to 
rescue  other  unfortunates.  All  day  Saturday  he 
worked  like  a  beaver  in  water  to  his  neck,  and  he 
saved  the  lives  of  many. 

No  man  returns  from  the  valley  of  death  with 
more  horrible  remembrance  of  the  flood  than  Dr. 
Henry  H.  Phillips,  of  Pittsburg.  He  is  the  only 
one  known  to  be  saved  out  of  a  household  of 
thirteen,  among  whom  was  his  feeble  old  mother 
and  other  near  and  dear  friends.  His  own  life 
was  saved  by  his  happening  to  step  out  upon  the 
portico  of  the  house  just  as  the  deluge  came. 
Dr.  Phillips  had  gone  to  Johnstown  to  bring  his 
mother,  who  was  an  invalid,  to  his  home  i;i  the 
East  End.  They  had  intended  starting  for  Pitts- 
burg  Friday  morning,  but  Mrs.  Phillips  did  not 


TIg  THE   JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

feel  able  to  make  the  journey,  and  it  was  post- 
poned until  the  next  day.  In  the  meantime  the 
flood  began  to  come,  and  during  the  afternoon  of 
"Friday  the  family  retired  to  the  upper  floors  of 
the  house  for  safety.  There  were  thirteen  in  the 
house,  including  little  Susan  McWilliams,  the 
twelve-year-old  daughter  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Mc- 
Williams, of  Pittsburg,  who  was  visiting  her  aunt, 
Mrs.  Phillips  ;  Dr.  L.  T.  Beam,  son-in-law  of  Mrs. 
Phillips ;  another  niece,  and  Mrs.  Dowling,  a 
neighbor.  The  latter  had  come  there  with  her 
children  because  the  Phillips  house  was  a  brick 
structure  while  her  own  was  frame.  Its  destruc- 
tion proved  to  be  the  more  sudden  and  complete 
on  account  of  the  material. 

The  water  was  a  foot  deep  on  the  first  floor, 
and  the  family  were  congratulating  themselves 
that  they  were  so  comfortably  situated  in  the 
upper  story,  when  Dr.  Phillips  heard  a  roaring 
up  toward  the  Cambria  Iron  Works.  Without  a 
thought  of  the  awful  truth,  he  stepped  out  upon 
the  portico  of  the  house  to  see  what  it  meant. 
A  wall  of  water  and  wreckage  loomed  up  before 
him  like  a  roaring  cloud.  Before  he  could  turn 

o 

back  or  cry  out  he  saw  a  house,  that  ro'de  the 
flood  like  a  chip,  come  between  him  and  his  vision 
of  the  window.  Then  all  was  dark,  and  the  cold 
water  seemed  to  wrap  him  up  and  toss  him  to  a 
house-top  three  hundred  yards  from  where  that 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  I  I  7 

of  his  mother  had  stood.  Gathering  his  shattered 
wits  together  the  Doctor  saw  he  was  floating 
about  in  the  midst  of  a  black  pool.  Dark  objects 
were  moving  all  about  him,  and  although  there 
was  some  light,  he  could  not  recognize  any  of 
the  surroundings.  For  seventeen  hours  he  drifted 
about  upon  the  wreckage  where  fate  had  tossed 
him.  Then  rescuers  came,  and  he  was  taken  to 
safe  quarters.  A  long  search  has  so  far  failed  to 
elicit  any  tidings  of  the  twelve  persons  in  the 
Phillips'  house. 

Mr.  G.  B.  Hartley,  of  Philadelphia,  was  one  of 
the  five  out  of  fifty-five  guests  of  the  Hurlburt 
House  who  survived. 

"  The  experience  I  passed  through  at  Johns- 
town on  that  dreadful  Friday  night,"  said  Mr. 
Hartley  to  a  correspondent,  "  is  like  a  horrible 
nightmare  in  a  picture  before  me.  When  the 
great  rush  of  water  came  I  was  sitting  in  the 
parlors  of  the  Hurlburt  House.  Suddenly  we 
were  startled  to  hear  several  loud  shouts  on  the 
streets.  These  cries  were  accompanied  by  a  loud, 
crashing  noise.  At  the  first  sound  we  all  rushed 
from  the  room  panic-stricken.  There  was  a  crash 
and  I  found  myself  pinned  down  by  broken  boards 
and  debris  of  different  kinds.  The  next  moment 
I  felt  the  water  surging  in.  I  knew  it  went  higher 
than  my  head  because  I  felt  it.  The  water  must 
have  passed  like  a  flash  or  I  would  not  have  come 
out  alive.  After  the  shock  I  could  see  that  the 


1 1 8  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD. 

entire  roof  of  the  hotel  had  been  carried  off. 
Catching  hold  of  something  I  manged  to  pull 
myself  up  on  to  the  roof.  The  roof  had  slid  off 
and  lay  across  the  street.  On  the  roof  I  had  a 
chance  to  observe  my  surroundings.  Down  on 
the  extreme  edge  of  the  roof  I  espied  the  proprie- 
tor of  the  hotel,  Mr.  Benford.  He  was  nearly 
exhausted,  and  it  required  every  effort  for  him  to 
hold  to  the  roof.  Cautiously  advancing,  I  man- 
aged to  creep  down  to  where  he  was  holding.  I 
tried  to  pull  him  up,  but  found  I  was  utterly 
powerless.  Mr.  Benford  was  nearly  as  weak  as 
myself,  and  could  do  very  little  toward  helping 
himself.  We  did  not  give  up,  however,  and  in  a 
few  minutes,  by  dint  of  struggling  and  putting 
forth  every  bit  of  strength,  Mr.  Benford  managed 
to  crawl  upon  the  roof.  Crouching  and  shivering 
on  another  part  of  the  roof  were  two  girls,  one  a 
chamber-maid  of  the  hotel,  and  the  other  a  clerk 
in  a  store  that  was  next  to  it.  The  latter  was  in 
a  pitiable  plight.  Her  arm  had  been  torn  from  its 
socket.  I  took  off  my  overcoat  and  gave  it  to  her. 
Mr.  Benford  did  the  same  thing  for  the  other,  for  it 
was  quite  chilly.  A  young  man  was  nursing  his 
mother,  who  had  had  her  scalp  completely  torn 
off.  He  asked  me  to  hold  her  head  until  he  could 
make  a  bandage.  He  tore  a  thick  strip  of  cloth 
and  placed  it  round  her  head.  The  blood  satu- 
rated it  before  it  was  well  on.  Soon  after  this  I 
was  rescued  more  dead  than  alive." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MANY  of  the  most  thrilling  sights  and  ex- 
periences were  those  of  railroad  employees 
and  passengers.  Mr.  Henry,  the  engineer  of  the 
second  section  of  express  train  No.  8,  which  runs 
between  PittsburgandAltoona,was  at  Conemaugh 
when  the  great  flood  came  sweeping  down  the 
valley.  He  was  able  to  escape  to  a  place  of  safety. 
His  was  the  only  train  that  was  not  injured,  even 
though  it  was  in  the  midst  of  the  great  wave.  The 
story  as  related  by  Mr.  Henry  is  most  graphic. 

"  It  was  an  awful  sight,"  he  said.  "  I  have  often 
seen  pictures  of  flood  scenes  and  I  thought  they 
were  exaggerations,  but  what  I  witnessed  last 
Friday  changes  my  former  belief.  To  see  that 
immense  volume  of  water,  fully  fifty  feet  high, 
rushing  madly  down  the  valley,  sweeping  every- 
thing before  it,  was  a  thrilling  sight.  It  is  engraved 
indelibly  on  my  memory.  Even  now  I  can  see 
that  mad  torrent  carrying  death  and  destruction 
before  it. 

"  The  second  section  of  No.  8,  on  which  I  was, 

119 


120  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

4 

was  due  at  Johnstown  about  quarter  past  ten  in 
the  morning.  We  arrived  there  safely  and  were 
told  to  follow  the  first  section.  When  we  arrived 
at  Conemaugh  the  first  section  and  the  mail  were 
there.  Washouts  further  up  the  mountain  pre- 
vented our  going  on,  so  we  could  do  nothing  but 
sit  around  and  discuss  the  situation.  The  creek 
at  Conemaugh  was  swollen  high,  almost  over- 
flowing. The  heavens  were  pouring  rain,  but 
this  did  not  prevent  nearly  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  town  from  gathering  along  its  banks.  They 
watched  the  waters  go  dashing  by  and  wondered 
whether  the  creek  would  get  much  higher.  But  a 
few  inches  more  and  it  would  overflow  its  banks. 
There  seemed  to  be  a  feeling  of  uneasiness  among 
the  people.  They  seemed  to  fear  that  something 
awful  was  going  to  happen.  Their  suspicions 
were  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  warning  had 
come  down  the  valley  for  the  people  to  be  on  the 
lookout.  The  rains  had  swollen  everything  to  the 
bursting  point.  The'  day  passed  slowly,  however. 
Noon  came  and  went,  and  still  nothing  happened. 
We  could  not  proceed,  nor  could  we  go  back,  as 
the  tracks  about  a  mile  below  Conemaugh  had 

o 

been  washed  away,  so  there  was  nothing  for  us  to 
do  but  to  wait  and  see  what  would  come  next. 

"  Some  time  after  three  o'clock  Friday  afternoon 
I  went  into  the  train  dispatcher's  office  to  learn 
the  latest  news.  I  had  not  been  there  long  when 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD.  121 

I  heard  a  fierce  whistling  from  an  engine  away 
up  the  mountain.  Rushing  out  I  found  dozens 
of  men  standing  around.  Fear  had  blanched 
every  cheek.  The  loud  and  continued  whistling 
had  made  every  one  feel  that  something  serious 
was  going  to  happen.  In  a  few  moments  I  could 
hear  a  train  rattling  down  the  mountain.  About 
five  hundred  yards  above  Conemaugh  the  tracks 
make  a  slight  curve  and  we  could  not  see  beyond 
this.  The  suspense  was  something  awful.  We 
did  not  know  what  was  coming,  but  no  one  could 

O7 

get  rid  of  the  thought  that  something  was  wrong 
at  the  dam. 

"Our  suspense  was  not  very  long,  however. 
Nearer  and  nearer  the  train  came,  the  thundering 
sound  still  accompanying  it.  There  seemed  to  be 
something  behind  the  train,  as  there  was  a  dull, 
rumbling  sound  which  I  knew  did  not  come  from 
the  train.  Nearer  and  nearer  it  came  ;  a  moment 
more  and  it  would  reach  the  curve.  The  next 
instant  there  burst  upon  our  eyes  a  sight  that 
made  every  heart  stand  still.  Rushing  around  the 
curve,  snorting  and  tearing,  came  an  engine  and 
several  gravel  cars.  The  train  appeared  to  be 
putting  forth  every  effort  to  go  faster.  Nearer 
it  came,  belching  forth  smoke  and  whistling  long 
and  loud.  But  the  most  terrible  sight  was  to  fol- 
low. Twenty  feet  behind  came  surging  along  a  mad 
rush  of  water  fully  fifty  feet  high.  Like  the  train, 


1  2  2  ?HE  y  OHNSTO  WN  PL  0 OD. 

it  seemed  to  be  putting  forth  every  effort  to  push 
along  faster.  Such  an  awful  race  we  never  before 
witnessed.  For  an  instant  the  people  seemed 
paralyzed  with  horror.  They  knew  not  what  to 
do,  but  in  a  moment  they  realized  that  a  second's 
delay  meant  death  to  them.  With  one  accord  they 
rushed  to  the  high  lands  a  few  hundred  feet  away. 
Most  of  them  succeeded  in  reaching  that  place 
and  were  safe. 

"  I  thought  of  the  passengers  in  my  train.  The 
second  section  of  No.  8  had  three  sleepers.  In 
these  three  cars  were  about  thirty  people,  who 
rushed  through  the  train  crying  to  the  others 
'  Save  yourselves  !'  Then  came  a  scene  of  the 
wildest  confusion.  Ladies  and  children  shrieked 
and  the  men  seemed  terror-stricken.  I  succeeded 
ift  helping  some  ladies  and  children  off  the  train 
and  up  to  the  high  lands.  Running  back,  I 
caught  up  two  children  and  ran  for  my  life  to  a 
higher  place.  Thank  God,  I  was  quicker  than  the 
flood !  I  deposited  my  load  in  safety  on  the  high 
land  just  as  it  swept  past  us. 

"For  nearly  an  hour  we  stood  watching  the 
mad  flood  go  rushing  by.  The  water  was  full  of 
debris.  When  the  flood  caught  Conemaugh  it 
dashed  against  the  little  town  with  a  mighty 
crash.  The  water  did  not  lift  the  houses  up  and 
carry  them  off,  but  crushed  them  up  one  against 
the  other  and  broke  them  up  like  so  many  egg- 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  123 

shells.  Before  the  flood  came  there  was  a  pretty 
little  town.  When  the  waters  passed  on  there 
was  nothing  but  a  few  broken  boards  to  mark  the 
central  portion  of  the  city.  It  was  swept  as  clean 
as  a  newly-brushed  floor.  When  the  flood  passed 
onward  down  the  valley  I  went  over  to  my  train. 
It  had  been  moved  back  about  twenty  yards,  but 
it  was  not  damaged.  About  fifteen  persons  had 
remained  in  the  train  and  they  were  safe.  Of  the 
three  trains  ours  was  the  luckiest.  The  engines 
of  both  the  others  had  been  swept  off  the  track, 
and  one  or  two  cars  in  each  train  had  met  the 
same  fate.  What  saved  our  train  was  the  fact 
that  just  at  the  curve  which  I  mentioned  the 
valley  spread  out.  The  valley  is  six  or  seven 
hundred  yards  broad  where  our  train  was  stand- 
ing. This,  of  course,  let  the  floods  pass  out.  It 
was  only  about  twenty  feet  high  when  it  struck 
our  train,  which  was  about  in  the  middle  of  the 
valley.  This  fact,  together  with  the  elevation  of 
the  track,  was  all  that  saved  us.  We  stayed  that 
night  in  the  houses  in  Conemaugh  that  had  not 
been  destroyed.  The  next  morning  I  started 
down  the  valley  and  by  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon had  reached  Conemaugh  furnace,  eight 
miles  west  of  Johnstown.  Then  I  got  a  team  and 
came  home. 

"  In    my  tramp    down    the  valley  I  saw  some 
awful  sights.     On  the  tree  branches  hung  shreds 


I  2  4  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

of  clothing  torn  from  the  unfortunates  as  they 
were  whirled  along  in  the  terrible  rush  of  the  tor- 
rent. Dead  bodies  were  lying  by  scores  along 
the  banks  of  the  creeks.  One  woman  I  helped 
drag  from  the  mud  had  tightly  clutched  in  her 
hand  a  paper.  We  tore  it  out  of  her  hand  and 
found  it  to  be  a  badly  water-soaked  photograph. 
It  was  probably  a  picture  of  the  drowned  wo- 
man." 

Pemberton  Smith  is  a  civil  engineer  employed 
by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  On  Friday,  when 
the  disaster  occurred,  he  was  at  Johnstown,  stop- 
ping at  the  Merchants'  Hotel.  What  happened 
he  described  as  follows  : 

"  In  the  afternoon,  with  four  associates,  I  spent 
the  time  playing  checkers  in  the  hotel,  the  streets 
being  flooded  during  the  day.  At  half-past  four 
we  were  startled  by  shrill  whistles.  Thinking  a 
fire  was  the  cause,  we  looked  out  of  the  window. 
Great  masses  of  people  were  rushing  through  the 
water  in  the  street,  which  had  been  there  all  day, 
and  still  we  thought  the  alarm  was  fire.  All  of  a 
sudden  the  roar  of  the  water  burst  upon  our  ears, 
and  in  an  instant  more  the  streets  were  filled  with 
debris.  Great  houses  and  business  blocks  began 
to  topple  and  crash  into  each  other  and  go  down 
as  if  they  were  toy-block  houses.  People  in  the 
streets  were  drowning  on  all  sides.  One  of  our 
company  started  down-stairs  and  was  drowned. 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  j  2  c 

The  other  four, including  myself,  started  up-stairs, 
for  the  water  was  fast  rising.  When  we  got  on 
the  roof  we  could  see  whole  blocks  swept  away 
as  if  by  magic.  Hundreds  of  people  were  float- 
ing by,  clinging  to  roofs  of  houses,  rafts,  timbers, 
or  anything  they  could  get  a  hold  of.  The  hotel 
began  to  tremble,  and  we  made  our  way  to  an 
adjoining  roof.  Soon  afterward  part  of  the  hotel 
went  down.  The  brick  structures  seemed  to  fare 
worse  than  frame  buildings,  as  the  latter  would 

o     ' 

float,  while  the  brick  would  crash  and  tumble  into 
one  great  mass  of  ruins.  We  finally  climbed  into 
a  room  of  the  last  building  in  reach  and  stayed 
there  all  night,  in  company  with  one  hundred  and 
sixteen  other  people,  among  the  number  being  a 
crazy  man.  His  wife  and  family  had  all  been 
drowned  only  a  few  hours  before,  and  he  was  a 
raving  maniac.  And  what  a  night!  Sleep  !  Yes, 
I  did  a  little,  but  every  now  and  then  a  building 
near  by  would  crash  against  us,  and  we  would  all 
jump,  fearing  that  at  last  our  time  had  come. 

"  Finally  morning  dawned.  In  company  with 
one  of  my  associates  we  climbed  across  the  tops  of 
houses  and  floating  debris,  built  a  raft,  and  poled 
ourselves  ashore  to  the  hillside.  I  don't  know 
how  the  others  escaped.  This  was  seven  o'clock 
on  Saturday  morning.  We  started  on  foot  for 
South  Fork,  arriving  there  at  three  p.  M.  Here 
we  found  that  all  communication  by  telegraph  and 


I  2 6  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

railroad  was  cut  off  by  the  flood,  and  we  had 
naught  to  do  but  retrace  our  steps.  Tired  and 
footsore  !  Well,  I  should  say  so.  My  gum-boots 
had  chafed  my  feet  so  I  could  hardly  walk  at  all. 
The  distance  we  covered  on  foot  was  over  fifty 
miles.  On  Sunday  we  got  a  train  to  Altoona. 
Here  we  found  the  railroad  connections  all  cut  off, 
so  we  came  back  to  Johnstown  again  on  Monday. 
And  what  a  desolate  place  !  I  had  to  obtain  a  pass 
to  go  over  into  the  city.  Here  it  is  : 

"  Pass  Pemberton  Smith  through  all  the  streets. 

"  ALEC.  HART,  Chief  of  Police. 
"A.  J.  MAXHAM,  Acting  Mayor.'' 

"  The  tragic  pen-pictures  of  the  scenes  in  the 
press  dispatches  have  not  been  exaggerated. 
They  cannot  be.  The  worse  sight  of  all  was  to 
see  the  great  fire  at  the  railroad-bridge.  It  makes 

«->  o 

my  blood  fairly  curdle  to  think  of  it.  I  could  see 
the  lurid  flames  shoot  heavenward  all  night  Friday, 
and  at  the  same  time  hundreds  of  people  were 
floating  right  toward  them  on  top  of  houses,  etc., 
and  to  meet  a  worse  death  than  drowning.  To 

O 

look  at  a  sight  like  this  and  not  be  able  to  render 
a  particle  of  assistance  seemed  awful  to  bear.  I 
had  a  narrow  escape,  truly.  In  my  mind  I  can 
hear  the  shrieks  of  men,  women,  and  children,  the 
maniac's  ravings,  and  the  wild  roar  of  a  sea  of 
water  sweeping  everything  before  it." 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  T  2n 

Among  the  lost  was  Miss  Jennie  Paulson,  a 
passenger  on  a  railroad  train,  whose  fate  is  thus 
described  by  one  of  her  comrades  : 

"  We  had  been  making  but  slow  progress  all 
the  day.  Our  train  lay  at  Johnstown  nearly  the 
whole  day  of  Friday.  We  then  proceeded  as  far 
as  Conemaugh,  and  had  stopped  from  some  cause 
or  other,  probably  on  account  of  the  flood.  Miss 
Paulson  and  a  Miss  Bryan  were  seated  in  front 
of  me.  Miss  Paulson  had  on  a  plaid  dress,  with 
shirred  waist  of  red  cloth  goods.  Her  companion 
was  dressed  in  black.  Both  had  lovely  corsage 
bouquets  of  roses.  I  had  heard  that  they  had 
been  attending  a  wedding  before  they  left  Pitts- 
burg.  The  Pitttsburg  lady  was  reading  a  novel 
entitled  Miss  Lou.  Miss  Bryan  was  looking 
out  of  the  window.  When  the  alarm  came  we  all 
sprang  toward  the  door,  leaving  everything 
behind  us.  I  had  just  reached  the  door  when 
poor  Miss  Paulson  and  her  friend,  who  were 
behind  me,  decided  to  return  for  their  rubbers, 
which  they  did.  I  sprang  from  the  car  into  a  ditch 
next  the  hillside,  in  which  the  water  was  already  a 
foot  and  a-half  deep,  and,  with  the  others,  climbed 
up  the  mountain  side  for  our  very  lives.  We  had 
to  do  so,  as  the  water  glided  up  after  us  like  a 
huge  serpent.  Any  one  ten  feet  behind  us  would 
have  been  lost  beyond  a  doubt.  I  glanced  back 
at  the  train  when  I  had  reached  a  place  of  safety, 
8 


j^Q  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

but  the  water  already  covered  it,  and  the  Pullman 
car  in  which  the  ladies  were  was  already  rolling 
down  the  valley  in  the  grasp  of  the  angry  waters." 

Mr.  William  Scheerer,  the  teller  of  the  State 
Banking  Company,  of  Newark,  N.  ].,  was  among 
the  passengers  on  the  ill-fated  day  express  on  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  that  left  Pittsburg  at 
eight  o'clock  A.  M.,  on  the  now  historic  Friday, 
bound  for  New  York. 

There  was  some  delays  incidental  to  the  floods 
in  the  Conemaugh  Valley  before  the  train  reached 
Johnstown,  and  a  further  delay  at  that  point,  and 
the  train  was  considerably  behind  time  when  it 
left  Johnstown.  Said  Mr.  Scheerer:  "The  parlor 
car  was  fully  occupied  when  I  went  aboard  the 
train,  and  a  seat  was  accordingly  given  me  in  the 
sleeper  at  the  rear  end  of  the  train.  There  were 
several  passengers  in  this  car,  how  many  I  cannot 
say  exactly,  among  them  some  ladies.  It  was  rain- 
ing hard  all  the  time  and  we  were  not  a  very  ex- 
cited nor  a  happy  crowd,  but  were  whiling  away 
the  time  in  reading  and  in  looking  at  the  swollen 
torrent  of  the  river.  Very  few  of  the  people  were 
apprehensive  of  any  danger  in  the  situation,  even 
after  we  had  been  held  up  at  Conemaugh  for 
nearly  five  hours. 

"The  railroad  tracks  where  our  train  stopped 
were  full  fourteen  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
river,  and  there  was  a  large  number  of  freight 


THE  J OHNS TO WN  FLOOD.  131 

and  passenger  cars  and  locomotives  standing  on 
the  tracks  near  us  and  strung  along  up  the  road 
for  a  considerable  distance.  Between  the  road 
and  the  hill  that  lay  at  our  left  there  was  a  ditch, 
through  which  the  water  that  came  down  from  the 
hill  was  running  like  a  mill-race.  It  was  a  monot- 
onous wait  to  all  of  us,  and  after  a  time  many  in- 
quiries were  made  as  to  why  we  did  not  go  ahead. 
Some  of  the  passengers  who  made  the  inquiry 
were  answered  laconically — '  Wash-out,'  and  with 
this  they  had  to  be  satisfied.  I  had  been  over  the 
road  several  times  before,  and  knew  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  dangerous  and  threatening  dam  up 
in  the  South  Fork  gorge,  and  could  not  help  con- 
necting it  in  my  mind  with  the  cause  of  our  delay. 
But  neither  was  I  apprehensive  of  danger,  for  the 
possibility  of  the  dam  giving  away  had  been  often 
discussed  by  passengers  in  my *  presence,  and 
everybody  supposed  that  the  utmost  damage  it 
would  do  when  it  broke,  as  everybody  believed  it 
sometime  would,  would  be  to  swell  a  little  higher 
the  current  that  tore  down  through  the  Cone- 
maugh  Valley. 

"Such  a  possibility  as  the  carrying  away  of  a 
train  of  cars  on  the  great  Pennsylvania  road  was 
never  seriously  entertained  by  anybody.  We  had 
stood  stationary  until  about  four  o'clock,  when 
two  colored  porters  went  through  the  car  within 
a  short  time  of  each  other,  looking  and  acting 


I  3  2  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  0  OD. 

rather  excited.  I  asked  the  first  one  what  the 
matter  was,  and  he  replied  that  he  did  not  know. 
I  inferred  from  his  reply  that  if  there  was  any 
thing  serious  up,  the  passengers  would  be  in- 
formed, and  so  I  went  on  reading.  When  the 
next  man  came  along  I  asked  him  if  the  reservoir 
had  given  way,  and  he  said  he  thought  it  had. 

"I  put  down  my  book  and  stepped  out  quickly 
to  the  rear  platform,  and  was  horrified  at  the  sight 
that  met  my  gaze  up  the  valley.  It  seemed  as  if 
a  forest  was  coming  down  upon  us.  There  was 
a  great  wall  of  water  roaring  and  grinding  swiftly 
along,  so  thickly  studded  with  the  trees  from 
along  the  mountain  sides  that  it  looked  like  a 
gigantic  avalanche  of  trees.  Of  course  I  lingered 
but  an  instant,  for  the  mortal  danger  we  all  were 
in  flashed  upon  me  at  the  first  sight  of  that  ter- 
rible on-coming  torrent.  But  in  that  instant  I  saw 
an  engine  lifted  bodily  off  the  track  and  thrown 
over  backward  into  the  whirlpool,  where  it  disap- 
peared, and  houses  crushed  and  broken  up  in  the 
flash  of  an  eye. 

"  The  noise  was  like  incessant  thunder.  I  turned 
back  into  the  car  and  shouted  to  the  ladies,  three 
of  whom  alone  were  in  the  car  at  the  moment,  to 
fly  for  their  lives.  I  helped  them  out  of  the  car 
on  the  side  toward  the  hill,  and  urged  them  to 
jump  across  the  ditch  and  run  for  their  lives.  Two 
of  them  did  so,  but  the  third,  a  rather  heavy  lady, 


THE  yOHNSTO IVN  FLOOD. 

a  missionary,  who  was  on  her  way  to  a  foreign 
station,  hesitated  for  an  instant,  doubtful  if  she 
could  make  the  jump.  That  instant  cost  her  her 
life.  While  I  was  holding  out  my  hand  to  her  and 
urging  her  to  jump,  the  rush  of  waters  came  down 
and  swept  her,  like  a  doll,  down  into  the  torrent. 
In  the  same  instant  an  engine  was  thrown  from 
the  track  into  the  ditch  at  my  feet.  The  water 
was  about  my  knees  as  I  turned  and  scrambled  up 
the  hill,  and  when  I  looked  back,  ten  seconds  later, 
it  was  surging  and  grinding  ten  feet  deep  over 
the  track  I  had  just  left. 

"  The  rush  of  waters  lasted  three-quarters  of  an 
hour,  while  we  stood  rapt  and  spell-bound  in  the 
rain,  looking  at  the  ruin  no  human  agency  could 
avert.  The  scene  was  beyond  the  power  of  lan- 
guage to  describe.  You  would  see  a  building 
standing  in  apparent  security  above  the  swollen 
banks  of  the  river,  the  people  rushing  about  the 
doors,  some  seeming  to  think  that  safety  lay  in- 
doors, while  others  rushed  toward  higher  ground, 
stumbling  and  falling  in  the  muddy  streets,  and 
then  the  flood  rolled  over  them,  crushing  in  the 
house  with  a  crash  like  thunder,  and  burying  house 
and  people  out  of  sight  entirely.  That,  of  course, 
was  the  scene  of  only  an  instant,  for  our  range  of 
vision  was  only  over  a  small  portion  of  the  city. 

"  We  sought  shelter  from  the  rain  in  the  home 
of  a  farmer  who  lived  high  up  on  the  side-hill, 


I  3 4  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

and  the  next  morning  walked  down  to  Johnstown 
and  viewed  the  ruins.  It  seemed  as  if  the  city 
was  utterly  destroyed.  The  water  was  deep 
over  all  the  city  and  few  people  were  visible.  We 
returned  to  Conemaugh  and  were  driven  over 
the  mountains  to  Ebensburg,  where  we  took  the 
train  for  Altoona,  but  finding  we  could  get  no 
further  in  that  direction  we  turned  back  to  Ebens- 
burg, and  from  there  went  by  wagon  to  Johns- 
town, where  we  found  a  train  that  took  us  to 
Pittsburg.  I  got  home  by  the  New  York 
Central." 


CHAPTER    X. 

EDWARD    H.   JACKSON,  who  worked  in 
the  Cambria  Iron  Works,  told  the  follow- 
ing story : 

"  When  we  were  going  to  work  Friday  morn- 
ing at  seven  o'clock,  May  3ist,  the  water  in  the 
river  was  about  six  inches  below  the  top  of  the 
banks,  the  rains  during  the  night  having  swollen 
it.  We  were  used  to  floods  about  this  time  of  the 
year,  the  water  always  washing  the  streets  and 
running  into  the  cellars,  so  we  we  did  not  pay 
much  attention  to  this  fact.  It  continued  rising, 
and  about  nine  o'clock  we  left  work  in  order  to  go 
back  to  our  homes  and  take  our  furniture  and 
carpets  to  the  upper  floors,  as  we  had  formerly 
done  on  similar  occasions.  At  noon  the  water 
was  on  our  first  floors,  and  kept  rising  until  there 
was  five  feet  of  water  in  our  homes.  It  was  still 
raining  hard.  We  were  all  in  the  upper  stories 
about  half-past  four,  when  the  first  intimation  we 
had  of  anything  unusual  was  a  frightful  crash, 
and  the  same  moment  our  house  toppled  over. 

135 


1 3 6  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  PL  OOD. 

Jumping  to  the  windows,  we  saw  the  water  rush- 
ing down  the  streets  in  immense  volumes,  carry- 
ing with  it  houses,  barns,  and,  worst  of  all,  scream- 
ing, terrified  men,  women,  and  children.  In  my 
house  were  Colonel  A.  N.  Hart,  who  is  my  uncle, 
his  wife,  sister,  and  two  children.  They  watched 
their  chance,  and  when  a  slowly  moving  house 
passed  by  they  jumped  to  the  roof  and  by  careful 
manoeuvring  managed  to  reach  Dr.  S.  M.  Swan's 
house,  a  three-story  brick  building,  where  there 
were  about  two  hundred  other  people.  I  jumped 
on  to  a  tender  of  an  engine  as  it  floated  down  and 
reached  the  same  house.  All  the  women  and 
children  were  hysterical,  most  of  the  men  were 
paralyzed  by  terror,  and  to  describe  the  scene  is 
simply  impossible.  From  the  windows  of  this 
house  we  threw  ropes  to  persons  who  floated  by 
on  the  roofs  of  houses,  and  in  this  way  we  saved 
several. 

"  Our  condition  in  the  house  was  none  of  the 
pleasantest.  There  was  nothing  to  eat ;  it  was 
impossible  to  sleep,  even  had  any  one  desired  to 
do  so ;  when  thirsty  we  were  compelled  to  catch 
the  rain-water  as  it  fell  from  the  roof  and  drink  it. 
Other  people  had  gone  for  safety  in  the  same 
manner  as  we  had  to  two  other  brick  houses,  H. 
Y.  Hawse's  residence  and  Alma  Hall's,  and  they 
went  through  precisely  the  same  experience  as 
We  did.  Many  of  our  people  were  badly  injured 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD.          137 

and  cut,  and  they  were  tended  bravely  and  well 
by  Dr.  W.  E.  Matthews,  although  he  himself  was 
badly  injured.  During  the  evening  we  saved  by 
ropes  W.  Forrest  Rose,  his  wife,  daughter,  and 
four  boys.  Mr.  Rose's  collar-bone  and  one  rib 
were  broken.  After  a  fearful  night  we  found, 
when  day  broke,  that  the  water  had  subsided,  and 
I  and  some  others  of  the  men  crawled  out  upon 
the  rubbish  and  debris  to  search  for  food,  for  our 
people  were  starving.  All  we  could  find  were 
water-soaked  crackers  and  some  bananas,  and 
these  were  eagerly  eaten  by  the  famished  suf- 
ferers. 

"Then,  during  the  morning,  began  the  thieving. 
I  saw  men  bursting  open  trunks,  putting  valuables 
in  their  pockets,  and  then  looking  for  more.  I 
did  not  know  these  people,  but  I  am  sure  they 
must  have  lived  in  the  town,  for  surely  no  others 
could  have  got  there  at  this  time.  A  meeting 
was  held,  Colonel  Hart  was  made  Chief  of  Police, 
and  he  at  once  gave  orders  that  any  one  caught 
stealing  should  be  shot  without  warning.  Not- 
withstanding this  we  afterward  found  scores  of 
bodies,  the  fingers  of  which  were  cut  off,  the  fiends 
not  wishing  to  waste  time  to  take  off  the  rings. 
Many  corpses  of  women  were  seen  from  which 
the  ears  had  been  cut,  in  order  to  secure  the  dia- 
mond earrings. 

"  Then,  to  add  to  our  horrors,  the  debris  piled 


I  38  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL OOD. 

up  against  the  bridge  caught  fire,  and  as  the 
streets  were  full  of  oil,  it  was  feared  that  the 
flames  would  extend  backwards,  but  happily  for 
us  this  was  not  the  case.  It  was  pitiful  to  hear 
the  cries  of  those  who  had  been  caught  in  the  rub- 
bish, and,  after  having  been  half  drowned,  had  to 
face  death  as  inevitable  as  though  bound  to  a 
stake.  The  bodies  of  those  burned  to  death  will 
never  be  recognized,  and  of  those  drowned  many 
were  so  badly  disfigured  by  being  battered  against 
the  floating  houses  that  they  also  will  be  unrecog- 
nizable. It  is  said  that  Charles  Butler,  the  assist- 
ant treasurer  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Works,  who 
was  in  the  Hurlburt  House,  convinced  that  he 
could  not  escape  and  wishing  his  body  to  be  rec- 
ognized, pinned  his  photograph  and  a  letter  to  the 
lapel  of  his  coat,  where  they  were  found  when  his 
body  was  recovered.  I  have  lost  everything  I 
owned  in  the  world,"  said  Mr.  Jackson,  in  conclu- 
sion, "and  hundreds  of  others  are  in  the  same 
condition.  The  money  in  the  banks  is  all  right, 
however,  for  it  was  stowed  away  in  the  vaults." 
Frank  McDonald,  a  railroad  conductor,  says: 
"  I  certainly  think  I  saw  one  thousand  bodies  go 
over  the  bridge.  The  first  house  that  came  down 
struck  the  bridge  and  at  once  took  fire,  and  as  fast 
as  the  others  came  down  they  were  consumed.  I 
believe  I  am  safe  in  saying  I  saw  one  thousand 
bodies  burn.  It  reminded  me  of  a  lot  of  flies  on 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  139 

fly-paper  struggling  to  get  away,  with  no  hope 
and  no  chance  to  save  them.  •  I  have  no  idea  that 
had  the  bridge  been  blown  up  the  loss  of  life  would 
have  been  any  less.  They  would  have  floated  a 
little  further  with  the  same  certain  death.  Then, 
again,  it  was  impossible  for  any  one  to  have 
reached  the  bridge  in  order  to  blow  it  up,  for  the 
waters  came  so  fast  that  no  one  could  have  done 
it." 

Michael  Renesen  tells  a  wonderful  story  of  his 
escape.  He  says  he  was  walking  down  Main 
Street  when  he  heard  a  rumbling  noise,  and, 
looking  around,  he  imagined  it  was  cloud,  but  in 
a  minute  the  water  was  upon  him.  He  floated 
with  the  tide  for  some  time,  when  he  was  struck 
with  some  floating  timber  and  borne  underneath 
the  water.  When  he  came  up  he  was  struck 
again,  and  at  last  he  was  caught  by  a  lightning 
rod  and  held  there  for  over  two  hours,  when  he 
was  finally  rescued. 

Mrs.  Anne  Williams  was  sitting  sewing  when 
the  flood  came  on.  She  heard  some  people  cry- 
ing and  jumped  out  of  the  window  and  succeeded 
in  getting  on  the  roof  of  an  adjoining  house. 
Under  the  roof  she  heard  the  cries  of  men  and 
women,  and  saw  two  men  and  a  woman  with 
their  heads  just  above  the  water,  crying  "  For 
God's  sake,  either  kill  us  outright  or  rescue  us !" 

Mrs.  Williams  cried  for  help  for  the  drowning 


!  40  THE  J01IXSTO  WN  FLOOD. 

people,  but  none  came,  and  she  saw  them  give  up 
one  by  one. 

James  F.  McCanagher  had  a  thrilling  experi- 
ence in  the  water.  He  saw  his  wife  was  safe  on 
land,  and  thought  his  only  daughter,  a  girl  aged 
about  twenty-one ,  was  also  saved,  but  just  as  he 
was  making  for  the  shore  he  saw  her  and  went  to 
rescue  her.  He  succeeded  in  getting  within  about 
ten  feet  of  land,  when  the  girl  said,  "  Good-bye, 
father,"  and  expired  in  his  arms  before  he  reached 
the  shore. 

James  M.  Walters,  an  attorney,  spent  Friday 
night  in  Alma  Hall,  and  relates  a  thrilling  story. 
One  of  the  most  curious  occurrences  of  the  whole 
disaster  was  how  Mr.  Walters  got  to  the  hall.  He 
has  his  office  on  the  second  floor.  His  home  is  at 
No.  135  Walnut  Street.  He  says  he  was  in  the 
house  with  his  family  when  the  waters  struck  it. 
All  was  carried  away.  Mr.  Walters'  family  drifted 
on  a  roof  in  another  direction  ;  he  passed  down 
several  streets  and  alleys  until  he  came  to  the  hall. 
His  dwelling  struck  that  edifice  and  he  was  thrown 
into  his  own  office.  About  three  hundred  persons 
had  taken  refuge  in  the  hall  and  were  on  the 
second,  third,  and  fourth  stories.  The  men  held  a 
meeting  and  drew  up  some  rules  which  all  were 
bound  to  respect. 

Mr.  Walters  was  chosen  president,  and  Rev. 
Mr.  Beale  was  put  in  charge  of  the  first  floor,  A, 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

M.  Hart  of  the  second  floor,  Dr.  Matthews  of  the 
fourth  floor.  No  lights  were  allowed,  and  the 
whole  night  was  spent  in  darkness.  The  sick 
were  cared  for,  the  weaker  women  and  children 
had  the  best  accommodation  that  could  .be  had, 
while  the  others  had  to  wait.  The  scenes  were 
most  agonizing.  Heartrending  shrieks,  sobs,  and 
moans  pierced  the  gloomy  darkness.  The  crying 
of  children  mingled  with  the  suppressed  sobs  of 
the  women.  Under  the  guardianship  of  the  men 
all  took  more  hope.  No  one  slept  during  all  the 
long,  dark  night.  Many  knelt  for  hours  in  prayer, 
their  supplications  mingling  with  the  roar  of  the 
waters  and  the  shrieks  of  the  dying  in  the  sur- 
rounding houses. 

In  all  this  misery  two  women  gave  premature 
birth  to  children,  Dr.  Matthews  is  a  hero — 
several  of  his  ribs  were  crushed  by  a  falling  tim- 
ber, and  his  pains  were  most  severe.  Yet  through 
all  he  attended  the  sick.  When  two  women  in  a 
house  across  the  street  shouted  for  help,  he,  with 
two  other  brave  young  men,  climbed  across  the 
drift  and  ministered  to  their  wants.  No  one  died 
during  the  night,  but  a  woman  and  children  sur- 
rendered their  lives  on  the  succeeding  day  as  a 
result  of  terror  and  fatigue.  Miss  Rose  Young, 
one  of  the  young  ladies  in  the  hall,  was  frightfully 
cut  and  bruised.  Mrs.  Young  had  a  leg  broken. 
All  of  Mr.  Walters'  family  were  saved. 


j  .2  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

Mrs.  J.  F.  Moore,  wife  of  a  Western  Union 
Telegraph  employee  in  Pittsburg,  escaped  with 
her  two  children  from  the  devastated  city  just  one 
hour  before  the  flood  had  covered  their  dwelling- 
place.  Mr.  Moore  had  arranged  to  have  his 
family  move  Thursday  from  Johnstown  and  join 
him  in  Pittsburg.  Their  household  goods  were 
shipped  on  Thursday  and  Friday.  The  little  party 
caught  the  last  train  which  made  the  trip  between 
Johnstown  and  Pittsburg. 

Mrs.  Moore  told  her  story.  "  Oh !  it  was 
terrible,"  she  said.  "  The  reservoir  had  not  yet 
burst  when  we  left,  but  the  boom  had  broken,  and 
before  we  got  out  of  the  house  the  water  filled 
the  cellar.  On  the  way  to  the  depot  the  water 
was  high  up  on  the  carriage  wheels.  Our  train 
left  at  quarter  to  two  p.  M.,  and  at  that  time  the 
flood  had  begun  to  rise  with  terrible  rapidity. 
Houses  and  sheds  were  carried  away  and  two 
men  were  drowned  almost  before  our  eyes. 
People  gathered  on  the  roofs  to  take  refuge  from 
the  water,  which  poured  into  the  lower  rooms  of 
their  dwellings,  and  many  families  took  flight  and 
became  scattered.  Just  as  the  train  pulled  out  I 
saw  a  woman  crying  bitterly.  Her  house  had 
been  flooded  and  she  had  escaped,  leaving  her 
husband  behind,  and  her  fears  for  his  safety  made 
her  almost  crazy.  Our  house  was  in  the  lower 
part  of  the  town,  and  it  makes  me  shudder  to 


} 'HE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  143 

think  what  would  have  happened  had  we  re- 
mained in  it  an  hour  longer.  So  far  as  I  know, 
we  were  the  only  passengers  from  Johnstown  on 
the  train." 

Mrs.  Moore's  little  son  told  the  reporter  that 
he  had  seen  the  rats  driven  out  of  their  holes  by 
the  flood  and  running  along  the  tops  of  the 
fences. 

One  old  man  named  Parsons,  with  his  wife  and 
children,  as  soon  as  the  water  struck  their  house, 
took  to  the  roof  and  were  carried  down  to  the 
stone  bridge,  where  the  back  wash  of  the  Stony 
Creek  took  them  back  up  along  the  banks  and 
out  of  harm's  way,  but  not  before  a  daughter-in- 
law  became  a  prey  to  the  torrent.  He  has  lived 
here  for  thirty-five  years,  and  had  acquired  a  nice, 
comfortable  home.  To-day  all  is  gone,  and  as  he 
told  the  story  he  pointed  to  a  rather  seedy-looking 
coat  he  had  on.  "  I  had  to  ask  a  man  for  it.  It's 
hard,  but  I  am  ruined,  and  I  am  too  old  to  begin 
over  again." 

Mr.  Lewis  was  a  well-to-do  young  man,  and 
owned  a  good  property  where  now  is  a  barren 
waste.  When  the  flood  came  the  entire  family  of 
eight  took  to  the  roof,  and  were  carried  along  on 
the  water.  Before  they  reached  the  stone  bridge, 
a  family  of  four  that  had  floated  down  from 
Woodvale,  two  and  a  half  miles  distant,  on  a  raft, 
got  off  to  the  roof  of  the  Lewis  House,  where  the 


I  44  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

entire  twelve  persons  were  pushed  to  the  bank  of 
the  river  above  the  bridge,  and  all  were  saved. 
When  Mr.  Lewis  was  telling  his  story  he  seemed 
grateful  to  the  Almighty  for  his  safety  while  thou- 
sands were  lost  to  him. 

Another  young  man  who  had  also  taken  to  a 
friendly  roof,  became  paralyzed  with  fear,  and 
stripping  himself  of  his  clothes  flung  himself  from 
the  housetop  into  the  stream  and  tried  to  swim. 
The  force  of  the  water  rushed  him  over  to  the 
west  bank  of  the  river,  where  he  was  picked  up 
soon  after. 

A  baby's  cradle  was  fished  out  of  a  ruin  and 
the  neatly  tucked-in  sheets  and  clothes,  although 
soiled  with  mud,  gave  evidence  of  luxury.  The 
entire  family  was  lost,  and  no  one  is  here  to  lay 
claim  to  baby's  crib.  In  the  ruin  of  the  Penn 
House  the  library  that  occupied  the  extension  was 
entirely  gone,  while  the  brick  front  was  taken  out 
and  laid  bare  the  parlor  floor,  in  which  the  piano, 
turned  upside  down,  was  noticeable,  while  several 
chandeliers  were  scattered  on  top. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  first  survivors  of  the  Johnstown  wreck 
who  arrived  at  Pittsburg  were  Joseph  and 
Henry  Lauffer  and  Lew  Dalmeyer.  They  en- 
dured considerable  hardship  and  had  several 
narrow  escapes  with  their  lives.  Their  story  of 
the  disaster  can  best  be  told  in  their  own  lan- 
guage. Joe,  the  youngest  of  the  Lauffer  brothers, 
said  : 

"  My  brother  and  I  left  on  Thursday  for  Johns- 
town. The  night  we  arrived  there  it  rained  con- 
tinually, and  on  Friday  morning  it  began  to  flood. 
I  started  for  the  Cambria  store  at  a  quarter-past 
eight  on  Friday,  and  in  fifteen  minutes  afterward  I 
had  to  get  out  of  the  store  in  a  wagon,  the  water 
was  running  so  rapidly.  We  then  arrived  at  the 
station  and  took  the  day  express  and  went  as  far 
as  Concmaugh,  where  we  had  to  stop.  The 
limited,  however,  got  through,  and  just  as  we 
were  about  to  start  the  bridge  at  South  Fork 
gave  way  with  a  terrific  crash,  and  we  had  to 
stay  there.  We  then  went  to  Johnstown.  This 
9  147 


T,g  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

was  at  a  quarter  to  ten  in  the  morning,  when  the 
flood  was  just  beginning.  The  whole  city  of  Johns- 
town was  inundated  and  the  people  all  moved  up 
to  the  second  floor. 

"  Now  this  is  where  the  trouble  occurred. 
These  poor  unfortunates  did  not  know  the  reser- 
voir would  burst,  and  there  are  no  skiffs  in  Johns- 
town to  escape  in.  When  the  South  Fork  basin 
gave  way  mountains  of  water  twenty  feet  high 
came  rushing  down  the  Conemaugh  River,  carry- 
ing before  them  death  and  destruction.  I  shall 

o 

never  forget  the  harrowing  scene.  Just  think  of 
it!  thousands  of  people,  men,  and  women,  and  chil- 
dren, struggling  and  weeping  and  wailing  as  they 
were  being  carried  suddenly  away  in  the  raging 
current.  Houses  were  picked  up  as  if  they  were 
but  a  feather,  and  their  inmates  were  all  carried 
away  with  them,  while  cries  of  '  God  help  me !' 
'Save  me!'  'I  am  drowning!'  '  My  child  !'  and 
the  like  were  heard  on  all  sides.  Those  who 
were  lucky  enough  to  escape  went  to  the  moun-' 
tains,  and  there  they  beheld  the  poor  unfortunates 
being  crushed  to  death  among  the  debris  without 
any  chance  of  being  rescued.  Here  and  there  a 
body  was  seen  to  make  a  wild  leap  into  the  air 
and  then  sink  to  the  bottom. 

"At  the  stone  bridge  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  people  were  dashed  to  death  against 
the  piers.  When  the  fire  started  there  hundreds 


THE  y OHNS TO IV N  FLOOD. 


149 


of  bodies  were  burned.  Many  lookers-on  up  on 
the  mountains,  especially  the  woman,  fainted." 

Mr.  Lauffer's  brother,  Harry,  then  told  his  part 
of  the  tale,  which  was  not  less  interesting.  He 
said :  "  We  had  a  series  of  narrow  escapes,  and 
I  tell  you  we  don't  want  to  be  around  when  any- 
thing of  that  kind  occurs  again. 

"  The  scenes  at  Johnstown  have  not  in  the  least 
been  exaggerated,  and,  indeed,  the  worst  is  to  be 
heard.  When  we  got  to  Conemaugh  and  just  as 
we  were  about  to  start  the  bridge  gave  way. 
This  left  the  day  express,  the  accommodation,  a 
special  train,  and  a  freight  train  at  the  station. 
Above  was  the  South  Fork  water  basin,  and  all  of 
the  trains  were  well  filled.  We  were  discussing 

o 

the  situation  when  suddenly,  without  any  warning, 
the  whistles  of  every  engine  began  to  shriek,  and 
in  the  noise  could  be  heard  the  warning  of  the  first 
engineer,  '  Fly  for  your  lives  !  Rush  to  the  moun- 
tains, the  reservoir  has  burst.'  Then  with  a  thun- 
dering peal  came  the  mad  rush  of  waters.  No 
sooner  had  the  cry  been  heard  than  those  who 
could  rushed  from  the  train  with  a  wild  leap  ^~«.i 
up  the  mountains.  To  tell  this  story  tak^s  some 
time,  but  the  moments  in  which  the  horrible  scene 
was  enacted  were  few.  Then  came  the  avalanche 
of  water,  leaping  and  rushing  with  tremendous 
force.  The  waves  had  angry  crests  of  white, 
and  their  roar  was  something  deafening.  In  one 


JCQ  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

terrible  swath  they  caught  the  four  trains  and 
lifted  three  of  them  right  off  the  track,  as  if  they 
were  only  a  cork.  There  they  floated  in  the  river. 
1  hink  of  it,  three  large  locomotives  and  finely 
finished  Pullmans  floating  around,  and  above 
all  the  hundreds  of  poor  unfortunates  who  were 
unable  to  escape  from  the  car  swiftly  drifting  to- 
ward death.  Just  as  we  were  about  to  leap  from 
the  car  I  saw  a  mother,  with  a  smiling,  blue-eyed 
baby  in  her  arms.  I  snatched  it  from  her  and 
leaped  from  the  train  just  as  it  was  lifted  off  the 
track.  The  mother  and  child  were  saved,  but  if 
one  more  minute  had  elapsed  we  all  would  have 
perished. 

"  During  all  of  this  time  the  waters  kept  rush- 
ing down  the  Conemaugh  and  Through  the  beauti- 
ful town  of  Johnstown,  picking  Uj.  everything  and 
sparing  nothing. 

"The  mountains  by  this  time  wert  'ick  with 
people,  and  the  moans  and  sighs  from  tho.  Selow 
brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  most  b  ~<y- 
hearted.  There  in  that  terrible  rampage  wt.ro 
brothers,  sisters,  wives  and  husbands,  and  from 
the  mountain  could  be  seen  the  panic-stricken 
marks  in  the  faces  of  those  who  were  struggling 
batw^n  life  and  death.  I  really  am  unable  to  do 
justice  tc  the  scene,  and  its  details  are  almost 
beyond  my  p^r.ver  to  relate.  Then  came  the  burn- 
ing of  the  debris  near  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 


y  OHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 


T  c 


bridge.  The  scene  was  too  sickening  to  endure. 
We  left  the  spot  and  journeyed  across  country 
and  delivered  many  notes,  letters,  etc.,  that  were 
intrusted  to  us. 

The  gallant  young  engineer,  John  G.  Parke, 
whose  ride  of  warning  has  already  been  described, 
relates  the  following  : 

"On  Thursday  night  I  noticed  that  the  dam 
was  in  good  order  and  the  water  was  nearly  seven 
feet  from  the  top.  When  the  water  is  at  this 
height  the  lake  is  then  nearly  three  miles  in  length. 
It  rained  hard  on  Thursday  night  and  I  rode  up 
to  the  end  of  the  lake  on  the  eventful  day  and 
saw  that  the  woods  around  there  was  teeming  with 
a  seething  cauldron  of  water.  Colonel  Unger,  the 
president  of  the  fishing  club  that  owns  the 
property,  put  twenty-five  Italians  to  work  to  fix 
the  dam.  A  farmer  in  the  vicinity  also  lent  a 
willing  hand.  To  strengthen  the  dam  a  plow 
was  run  along  the  top  of  it,  and  earth  was  then 
thrown  into  the  furrows.  On  the  west  side  a 
channel  was  dug  and  a  sluice  was  constructed. 
We  cut  throuo-h  about  four  feet  of  shale  rock, 

o 

when  we  came  to  solid  rock  which  was  impossible 
to  cut  without  blasting.  Once  we  got  the  channel 
open  the  water  leaped  down  to  the  bed-rock,  and 
a  stream  fully  f./enty  feet  wide  and  three  feet 
deep  rushed  out  on  that  end  of  the  dam,  while 
great  quantities  of  water  were  coming  in  by  the 


!  e  2  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

pier  at  the  other  end.  And  then  in  the  face  of  this 
great  escape  of  water  from  the  dam,  it  kept  rising 
at  the  rate  of  ten  inches  an  hour. 

"  At  noon  I  fully  believed  that  it  was  practically 
impossible  to  save  the  dam,  and  I  got  on  a  horse 
and  galloped  down  to  South  Fork,  and  gave  the 
alarm,  telling  the  people  at  the  same  time  of  their 
danger,  and  advising  them  to  get  to  a  place  of 
safety.  I  also  sent  a  couple  of  men  to  the  tele- 
graph tower,  two  miles  away,  to  send  messages 
to  Johnstown  and  Cambria  and  to  the  other 
points  on  the  way.  The  young  girl  at  the  instru- 
ment fainted  when  the  news  reached  her,  and 
was  carried  away.  Then,  by  the  timely  warning 
given,  the  people  at  South  Fork  had  an  opportu- 
nity to  move  their  household  goods  and  betake 
themselves  to  a  place  of  safety.  Only  one  per- 
son was  drowned  in  that  place,  and  he  was  trying 
to  save  an  old  washtub  that  was  floating  down- 
stream. 

"  It  was  noon  when  the  messages  were  sent 
out,  so  that  the  people  of  Johnstown  had  just 
three  hours  to  fly  to  a  place  of  safety.  Why 
they  did  not  heed  the  warning  will  never  be  told. 
I  then  remounted  my  horse  and  rode  to  the  dam, 
expecting  at  every  moment  to  meet  the  lake 
rushino-  down  the  mountain-side,  but  when  I 
reached  there  I  found  the  dam  still  intact,  although 
the  water  had  then  reached  the  top  of  it.  At  one 
p.  M.  I  walked  over  the  dam,  and  then  the  water 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  ODD.  j  r  -, 

was  about  three  inches  on  it,  and  was  gradually 
gnawing  away  its  face.  As  the  stream  leaped 
down  the  outer  face,  the  water  was  rapidly  wearing 
down  the  edge  of  the  embankment,  and  I 
knew  that  it  was  a  question  of  but  a  few  hours. 
From  my  knowledge  I  should  say  there  was  fully 
ten  million  tons  of  water  in  the  lake  at  one 
o'clock,  while  the  pressure  was  largely  increased 
by  the  swollen  streams  that  flowed  into  it,  but 
even  then  the  dam  could  have  stood  it  if  the  level 
of  the  water  had  been  kept  below  the  top.  But, 
coupled  with  this,  there  was  the  constantly  trick- 
ling of  the  water  over  the  sides,  which  was  slowly 
but  surely  wearing  the  banks  away. 

"The  big  break  took  place  at  just  three  o'clock, 
and  it  was  about  ten  feet  wide  at  first  and  shallow; 
but  when  the  opening  was  made  the  fearful  rush- 
ing waters  opened  the  gap  with  such  increasing 
rapidity  that  soon  after  the  entire  lake  leaped  out 
and  started  on  its  fearful  march  of  death  down 
the  Valley  of  the  Conemaugh.  It  took  but  forty 
minutes  to  drain  that  three  miles  of  water,  and  the 
downpour  )f  millions  of  tons  of  water  was  irre- 
sistible. The  big  boulders  and  great  rafters  and 
logs  that  were  in  the  bed  of  the  river  were  picked 
up,  like  so  much  chaff,  and  carried  down  the  tor- 
rent for  miles.  Trees  that  stood  fully  seventy- 
five  feet  in  height  and  four  feet  through  were 
snapped  off  like  pipe-stems." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

ONE  of  the  most  thrilling  incidents  of  the  dis- 
aster was  the  performance  of  A.  J.  Leon- 
ard, whose  family  reside  in  Morrellville.  He  was 
at  work,  and  hearing  that  his  house  had  been 
swept  away,  determined  at  all  hazards  to  ascertain 
the  fate  of  his  family.  The  bridges  having  been 
carried  away,  he  constructed  a  temporary  raft,  and 
clinging  to  it  as  close  as  a  cat  to  the  side  of  a 
fence,  he  pushed  his  frail  craft  out  in  the  raging 
torrent  and  started  on  a  chase  which,  to  all  who 
were  watching,  seemed  to  mean  an  embrace  in 
death. 

Heedless  of  cries  "  For  God's  sake,  go  back, 
you  will  be  drowned,"  and  "  Don't  attempt  it," 
hs  persevered.  As  the  raft  struck  the  current  he 
threw  off  his  coat  and  in  his  shirt  sleeves  braved 
the  stream.  Down  plunged  the  boards  and  down 
went  Leonard,  but  as  it  rose  he  was  seen  still 
clinging.  A  mighty  shout  arose  from  the  throats 
of  the  hundreds  on  the  banks,  who  were  now 
154 


THE  J  OHNS  TO  Wit  FLOOD.  j  r  c 

deeply  interested,  earnestly  hoping  he  would  suc- 
cessfully ford  the  stream. 

Down  again  went  his  bark,  but  nothing,  it 
seemed,  could  shake  Leonard  off.  The  craft  shot 
up  in  the  air  apparently  ten  or  twelve  feet,  and 
Leonard  stuck  to  it  tenaciously.  Slowly  but  surely 
he  worked  his  boat  to  the  other  side  of  the  stream, 
and  after  what  seemed  an  awful  suspense  he 
finally  landed,  amid  ringing  cheers  of  men,  women, 
and  children. 

The  scenes  at  Heanemyer's  planing-mill  at 
Nineveh,  where  the  dead  bodies  are  lying,  are 
never  to  be  forgotten.  The  torn,  bruised,  and 
mutilated  bodies  of  the  victims  are  lying  in  a  row 
on  the  floor  of  the  pbning-mill,  which  looks  more 
like  the  field  of  Bull  Run  after  that  disastrous 
battle  than  a  workshop.  The  majority  of  the 
bodies  are  nude,  their  clothing  having  been  torn 
off.  All  along  the  river  bits  of  clothing — a  tiny 
shoe,  a  baby  dress,  a  mother's  evening  wrapper,  a 
father's  coat — and,  in  fact,  every  article  of  wearing 
apparel  imaginable,  may  be  seen  hanging  to 
stumps  of  trees  and  scattered  on  the  bank. 

One  of  the  most  pitiful  sights  of  this  terrible 
disaster  came  to  notice  when  the  body  cf  a  young 
lady  was  taken  outof  the  Conemaugh  River.  1  he 
woman  was  apparently  quite  young,  though  her 
features  were  terribly  disfigured.  Nearly  all  the 
clothing  excepting  the  shoes  was  torn  off  the 


I  5  6  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

body.  The  corpse  was  that  of  a  mother,  for, 
although  cold  in  death,  she  clasped  a  young 
male  babe,  apparently  not  more  than  a  year  old, 
tightly  in  her  arms.  The  little  one  was  huddled 
close  up  to  the  face  of  the  mother,  who,  when  she 
realized  their  terrible  fate,  had  evidently  raised  it 
to  her  lips  to  imprint  upon  its  lips  the  last  kiss  it 
was  to  receive  in  this  world.  The  sight  forced 
many  a  stout  heart  to  shed  tears.  The  limp 
bodies,  with  matted  hair,  some  with  holes  in  their 
heads,  eyes  knocked  out,  and  all  bespattered  with 
blood  were  a  ghastly  spectacle. 

Mr.  J.  M.  Fronheiser,  one  of  the  Superintend- 
ents in  the  Cambria  Iron  Works,  lived  on  Main 
Street  His  house  was  one  of  the  first  to  go,  and 
he  himself,  his  wife,  two  daughters,  son,  and  baby 
were  thrown  into  the  raging  torrent.  His  wife 
and  eldest  daughter  were  lost.  He,  with  the 
baby,  reached  a  place  of  safety,  and  his  ten-year- 
old  boy  and  twelve-year-old  girl  floated  near 
enough  to  be  reached.  He  caught  the  little  girl, 
but  she  cried : 

"  Let  me  go,  papa,  and  save  brother ;  my  leg  is 
broken  and  my  foot  is  caught  below." 

When  he  told  her  he  was  determined  to  rescue 
her,  she  exclaimed: 

"  Then,  papa,  get  a  sharp  knife  and  cut  my  leg 
off.  I  can  stand  it." 

The  little  fellow  cried  to  his  father:  "  You  can't 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  jcy 

save  me,  papa.  Both  my  feet  are  caught  fast,  and 
I  can't  hold  out  any  longer.  Please  get  a  pistol 
and  shoot  me.'' 

Captain  Gageby,  of  the  army,  and  some  neigh- 
bors helped  to  rescue  both  children.  The  girl  dis- 
played Spartan  fortitude  and  pluck.  All  night  long 
she  lay  in  a  bed  without  a  mattress  or  medical  atten- 
tion in  a  garret,  the  water  reaching  to  the  floor 
below,  without  a  murmur  or  a  whimper.  In  the 
morning  she  was  carried  down-stairs,  her  leg 
dangling  under  her,  but  when  she  saw  her  father 
at  the  foot  of  the  stair-s,  she  whispered  to  Captain 
Gageby : 

"  Poor  papa;  he  is  so  sad.M  Then,  turning  to 
her  father,  she  threw  a  kiss  with  her  hands  and 
laughingly  said,  "  Good  morning,  papa  ;  I'm  all 
right." 

The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company's  opera- 
tors at  Switch  Corner,  "  S.  Q.,"  which  is  near 
Sang  Hollow,  tell  thrilling  stories  of  the  scenes 
witnessed  by  them  on  Friday  afternoon  and  even- 
ing. Said  one  of  them : 

"  In  order  to  give  you  an  idea  of  how  the  tidal 
wave  rose  and  fell,  let  me  say  that  I  kept  a  meas- 
ure and  timed  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  water,  and 
in  forty-eight  minutes  it  fell  four  and  a  half 
feet. 

"  I  believe  that  when  the  water  goes  down  about 
seventy-five  children  and  fifty  grown  persons  will 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  PLOO&. 

be  found  among  the  weeds  and  bushes  in  the  bend 
of  the  river  just  below  the  tower. 

"There  the  current  was  very  strong,  and  we 
saw  dozens  of  people  swept  under  the  trees,  and 
I  don't  believe  that  more  than  one  in  twenty  came 
out  on  the  other  side." 

"They  found  a  little  girl  in  white  just  now,"  said 
one  of  the  other  operators. 

"O  God!"  said  the  chief  operator.  "She  isn't 
dead,  is  she  ?" 

"Yes;  they  found  her  in  a  clump  of  willow 
bushes,  kneeling  on  a  board,  just  about  the  way 
we  saw  her  when  she  went  down  the  river."  Turn- 
ing to  me  he  said  : 

"  That  was  the  saddest  thing  we  saw  all  day 
yesterday.  Two  men  came  down  on  a  little  raft, 
with  a  little  girl  kneeling  between  them,  and  her 
hands  raised  and  praying.  She  came  so  close  to 
us  we  could  see  her  face  and  that  she  was  crying. 
She  had  on  a  white  dress  and  looked  like  a  little 
angel.  She  went  under  that  cursed  shoot  in  the 
willow  bushes  at  the  bend  like  all  the  rest,  but  we 
did  hope  she  would  get  through  alive." 

"  And  so  she  was  still  kneeling?"  he  said  to  his 
companion,  who  had  brought  the  unwelcome 
news. 

"  She  -sat  there,"  was  the  reply,  "  as  if  she  was 
still  praying,  and  there  was  a  smile  on  her  poor 
little  face,  though  her  mouth  was  full  of  mud." 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  j  ^ 

Driving  through  the  mountains  a  correspondent 
picked  up  a  ragged  little  chap  not  much  more  than 
big  enough  to  walk.  From  his  clothing  he  was 
evidently  a  refugee. 

"  Where  are  your  folks  ?"  he  was  asked. 

"We're  living  at  Aunty's  now." 

"  Did  you  all  get  out  ?" 

"  Oh !  we're  all  right — that  is,  all  except  two  of 
sister's  babies.  Mother  and  little  sister  wasn't 
home,  and  they  got  out  all  right." 

"  Where  were  you  ?" 

"  Oh !  I  was  at  sister's  house.  We  was  all  in 
the  water  and  fire.  Sister's  man — her  husband, 
you  know — took  us  up-stairs,  and  he  punched  a 
hole  through  the  roof,  and  we  all  climbed  out  and 
got  saved." 

"  How  about  the  babies?" 

<%  Oh !  sister  was  carrying  two  of  them  in  her 
arms,  and  the  bureau  hit  her  and  knocked  them 
out,  so  they  went  down." 

The  child  had  unconsciously  caught  one  of  the 
oddest  and  most  significant  tricks  of  speech  that 
have  arisen  from  the  calamity.  Nobody  here 
speaks  of  a  person's  having  been  drowned,  or 
killed,  or  lost,  or  uses  any  other  of  the  general 
expressions  for  sudden  death.  They  have  simply 
"  gone*down."  Everybody  here  seems  to  avoid 
harsh  words  in  referring  to  the  possible  affliction 
of  another.  Euphonistic  phrases  are  substituted 


!  60  7HE  JOHNS 7 O  WN  FLOOD. 

for  plain  questions.     Two  old  friends  met  for  the 
first  time  since  the  disaster, 

*'  I'm  glad  to  see  you,"  exclaimed  the  first.  "  Are 
you  all  right?" 

"Yes,  I'm  doing  first  rate,"  was  the  reply. 

The  first  friend  looked  awkwardly  about  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  asked  with  suppressed  eagerness: 

'•And — and  your  family — are  they  all — well?" 

There  was  a  world  of  significance  in  the  hesi- 
tation before  the  last  word. 

"  Yes.  Thank  God !  not  one  of  them  went 
down." 

A  man  who  looked  like  a  prosperous  banker, 
and  who  had  evidently  come  from  a  distance 
drove  through  the  mountains  toward  South  Fork. 
On  the  way  he  met  a  handsome  young  man  in  a 
silk  hat,  mounted  on  a  mule.  The  two  shook 
hands  eagerly. 

"  Have  you  anything  ?" 

"  Nothing.     What  have  you  ?" 

"  Nothing/' 

The  younger  man  turned  about  and  the  two 
rode  on  silently  through  the  forest  road.  Inquiry 
later  developed  the  fact  that  the  banker-looking 
man  was  really  a  banker  whose  daughter  had  been 
lost  from  one  of  the  overwhelmed  trains.  The 
young  man  was  his  son.  Both  had  been  search- 
ing for  some  clue  to  the  young  woman's  fate. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

IT  was  not  "good  morning"  in  Johnstown  nor 
"  good  night "  that  passed  as  a  salutation  be- 
tween neighbors  who  meet  for  the  first  time  since 
the  deluge,  but  "  How  many  of  your  folks  gone?"  It 
is  always  "folks,"  always  "gone.''  You  heard  it 
everywhere  among  the  crowds  that  thronged  the 
viaduct  and  looked  down  upon  the  ghastly  twenty 
acres  of  unburied  dead,  from  which  dynamite  was 
making  a  terrible  exhumation  of  the  corpses  of 
two  thousand  mortals  and  five  hundred  houses. 
You  heard  it  at  the  rope  bridge,  where  the  crowds 
waited  the  passage  of  the  incessant  file  of  empty 
coffins.  You  heard  it  upon  the  steep  hillside 
beyond  the  valley  of  devastation,  where  the  citi- 
zens of  Johnstown  had  fled  into  the  borough  of 
Conemaugh  for  shelter.  You  heard  it  again,  the 
first  salutation,  whenever  a  friend,  who  had  been 
searching  for  his  dead,  met  a  neighbor:  "Are  any 
of  your  friends  gone  ?'' 

It  was   not  said  in  tears  or  even  seemingly  in 
madness,     It  had  simply  come  to  be  the  "  how- 

161 


!  ^  2  THE  JOHNS™  n  N  I-L  o OD. 

d'ye-do"  of  the  eleven  thousand  people  who  sur- 
vived the  twenty-nine  thousand  five  hundred  peo- 
ple of  the  valley  of  the  Conemaugh. 

Still  finding  bodies  by  scores  in  the  debris  ;  still 
burying  the  dead  and  caring  for  the  wounded ; 
still  feeding  the  famishing  and  housing  the  home- 
less, was  the  record  for  days  following  the  one  on 
which  Johnstown  was  swept  away.  A  perfect 
stream  of  wagons  bearing  the  dead  as  fast  as  they 
were  discovered  was  constantly  filing  to  the  various 
improvised  morgues  where  the  bodies  were  taken 
for  identification.  Hundreds  of  people  were  con- 
stantly crowding  to  these  temporary  houses,  one 
of  which  was  located  in  each  of  the  suburban 
boroughs  that  surround  Johnstown.  Men  armed 
with  muskets,  uniformed  sentinels,  constituting  the 
force  that  guarded  the  city  while  it  was  practically 
under  martial  law,  stood  at  the  doors  and  admitted 
the  crowd  by  tens. 

In  the  central  dead-house  in  Johnstown  proper 
there  lay  two  rows  of  ghastly  dead.  To  the  right 
were  twenty  bodies  that  had  been  identified. 
They  were  mostly  women  and  children,  and  they 
were  entirely  covered  with  white  sheets,  and  a 
piece  of  paper  bearing  the  name  was  pinned  at 
the  feet.  To  the  left  were  eighteen  bodies  of  the 
unknown  dead.  As  the  people  passed  they  were 
hurried  along  by  an  attendant  and  gazed  at  the 
uncovered  faces  seeking  to  identify  them.  All 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  j  5  c 

applicants  for  admission,  if  it  was  thought  they 
were  prompted  by  idle  curiosity,  were  not  allowed 
to  enter.  The  central  morgue  was  formerly  a 
school-house,  and  the  desks  were  used  as  biers 
for  the  dead  bodies.  Three  of  the  former  pupils 
lay  on  the  desks  dead,  with  white  pieces  of  paper 
pinned  on  the  white  sheets  that  covered  them, 
giving  their  names. 

But  what  touching  scenes  are  enacted  every 
hour  about  this  mournful  building  !  Outside  the 
sharp  voices  of  the  sentinels  are  constantly  shout- 
ing :  "  Move  on."  Inside  weeping  women  and 
sad-faced,  hollow-eyed  men  are  bending  over 
loved  and  familiar  faces.  Back  on  the  steep  grassy 
hill  which  rises  abruptly  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street  are  crowds  of  curious  people  who  have 
come  in  from  the  country  round  about  to  look  at  the 
wreckage*  strewn  around  where  Johnstown  was. 

"  Oh  !  Mr.  Jones,"  a  pale-faced  woman  asks, 
walking  up,  sobbing,  "  can't  you  tell  me  where  we 
can  get  a  coffin  to  bury  Johnnie's  body?" 

"  Do  you  know,"  asks  a  tottering  old  man,  as 
the  pale-faced  woman  turns  away,  "  whether  they 
have  found  Jennie  and  the  children  ?" 

"Jennie's  body  has  just  been  found  at  the 
bridge,"  is  the  answer,  "  but  the  children  can't  be 
found." 

Jennie  is  the  old  man's  widowed  daughter,  and 
was  drowned,  with  her  two  children,  while  her 
10 


j  55  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

husband  was  at  work  over  at  the  Cambria 
Mills. 

Just  a  few  doors  below  the  school-house  morgue 
is  the  central  office  of  the  "Registry  Bureau." 
This  was  organized  by  Dr.  Buchanan  and  H.  G. 
Connaugh,  for  the  purpose  of  having  a  registry 
made  of  all  those  who  had  escaped.  They  real- 
ized that  it  would  be  impossible  to  secure  a  com- 
plete list  of  dead,  and  that  the  only  practicable 
thing  was  to  get  a  complete  list  of  the  living. 
Then  they  would  get  all  the  Johnstown  names, 
and  by  that  means  secure  a  list  of  the  dead. 
That  estimate  will  be  based  on  figures  secured  by 
the  subtraction  of  the  total  registry  saved  from 
total  population  of  Johnstown  and  surrounding 
boroughs. 

"I  have  been  around  trying  to  find  my  sister- 
in-law,  Mrs.  Laura  R.  Jones,  who  is  lost,"  said 
David  L.  Rogers. 

"How  do  you  know  she  is  lost?"  he  was 
asked. 

"  Because  I  can't  find  her." 

When  persons  can't  be  found  it  is  taken  as 
conclusive  evidence  that  they  have  been  drowned. 
It  is  believed  that  the  flood  has  buried  a  great 
many  people  below  the  bridge  in  the  ground  lying 
just  below  the  Cambria  Works.  Here  the  rush  of 
waters  covered  the  railroad  tracks  ten  feet  deep 
with  a  coating  of  stones.  Whether  they  will 


THE  JOHNSTOWtf  FLOOD,  jg- 

ever  be  dug  for  remains  to  be  seen.  Meantime, 
those  who  are  easier  to  reach  will  be  hunted  for. 
There  are  many  corpses  in  the  area  of  rubbish 
that  drifted  down  and  lodged  against  the  stone 
bridge  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  Out  of  this 
rubbish  one  thousand  bodies  have  already  been 
taken.  The  fire  that  was  started  by  the  driftwood 
touching  against  the  burning  Catholic  Church  as 
it  floated  down  was  still  burning. 

Walk  almost  anywhere  through  the  devastated 
district  and  you  will  hear  expressions  like  this : 
"  Why,  you  see  that  pile  of  wreckage  there. 
There  are  three  bodies  buried  beneath  that  pile. 
I  know  them,  for  I  lived  next  door.  They  are 
Mrs.  Charles  E.  Kast  and  her  daughter,  who  kept 
a  tavern,  and  her  bartender,  C.  S.  Noble." 

Henry  Rogers,  of  Pittsburg,  is  here  caring  for 
his  relatives.  "  I  am  scarcely  in  a  condition  to  talk," 
he  says.  "  The  awful  scenes  I  have  just  witnessed 
and  the  troubles  of  my  relatives  have  almost  un- 
nerved me.  My  poor  aunt,  Mrs.  William  Slick, 
is  now  a  raving  maniac.  Her  husband  was  form- 
erly the  County  Surveyor.  He  felt  that  the 
warning  about  the  dam  should  not  be  disregarded. 
Accordingly  he  made  preparations  to  go  to  a 
place  of  safety.  His  wife  was  just  recovering 
from  an  illness,  but  he  had  to  take  her  on  horse- 
back, and  there  was  no  time  to  get  a  carriage. 
They  escaped,  but  all  their  property  was  washed 


jgg  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

away.  Mrs.  Slick  for  a  time  talked  cheerfully 
enough,  and  said  they  should  be  thankful  they  had 
escaped  with  their  lives.  But  on  Sunday  it  was 
noticed  that  she  was  acting  strangely.  By  night 
she  was  insane.  I  suppose  the  news  that  some 
relatives  had  perished  was  what  turned  her  mind. 
I  am  much  afraid  that  Mrs.  Slick  is  not  the  only 
one  in  Johnstown  whose  reason  has  been  de- 
throned by  the  calamity.  I  have  talked  with  many 
citizens,  and  they  certainly  seem  crazy  to  me. 
When  the  excitement  passes  off  I  suppose  they 
will  regain  their  reason.  The  escape  of  my  uncle, 
George  R.  Slick,  and  his  wife,  I  think  was  really 
providential.  They,  too,  had  determined  to  heed 
the  warning  that  the  dam  was  unsafe.  When  the 
flood  came  they  had  a  carriage  waiting  at  the 
front  door.  Just  as  they  were  entering  it,  the 
water  came.  How  it  was,  my  aunt  cannot  tell  me, 
but  they  both  managed  to  catch  on  to  some  debris, 
and  were  thus  floated  along.  My  aunt  says  she 
has  an  indistinct  recollection  of  some  one  having 

o 

helped  her  upon  the  roof  of  a  house.  The  person 
who  did  her  this  service  was  lost.  All  night  they 
floated  along  on  the  roof.  They  suffered  greatly 
from  exposure,  as  the  weather  was  extremely 
chilly.  Next  morning  they  were  fortunately 
landed  safely.  My  uncle,  however,  is  now  lying 
at  the  point  of  death.  I  have  noticed  a  singular 
coincidence  here.  Down  in  the  lower  end  of  the 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  j  5^ 

city  stood  the  United  Presbyterian  parsonage. 
The  waters  carried  it  two  miles  and  a  half,  and 
landed  it  in  Sandy  Vale  Cemetery.  Strange  as  it 
may  seem,  the  sexton's  house  in  the  cemetery  was 
swept  away  and  landed  near  the  foundations  of 
the  parsonage.  I  have  seen  this  myself,  and  it  is 
commented  on  by  many  others." 

In  one  place  the  roofs  of  forty  frame  houses 
were  packed  in  together  just  as  you  would  place 
forty  bended  cards  one  on  top  of  another.  The 
iron  rods  of  a  bridge  were  twisted  into  a  perfect 
spiral  six  times  around  one  of  the  girders.  Just 
beneath  it  was  a  woman's  trunk,  broken  up  and 
half  filled  with  sand,  with  silk  dresses  and  a  veil 
streaming  out  of  it.  From  under  the  trunk  men 
were  lifting  the  body  of  its  owner,  perhaps,  so 
burned,  so  horribly  mutilated,  so  torn  limb  from 
limb  that  even  the  workmen,  who  have  seen  so 
many  of  these  frightful  sights  that  they  have 
begun  to  get  used  to  them,  turned  away  sick  at 
heart.  In  one  place  was  a  wrecked  grocery  store 
—bins  of  coffee  and  tea,  flour,  spices  and  nuts, 
partsofthe  counter  and  the  safe  mingled  together. 
Near  it  was  the  pantry  of  a  house,  still  partly 
intact,  the  plates  and  saucers  regularly  piled  up,  a 
waiter  and  a  teapot,  but  not  a  sign  of  the  wood- 
work, not  a  recognizable  outline  of  a  house. 

In  another  place  was  a  human  foot,  and  crumb- 
ling indications  of  a  boot,  but  no  signs  of  a  body. 


T  *o  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

A  hay-rick,  half  ashes,  stood  near  the  centre  of 
the  gorge.  Workmen  who  dug  about,  it  to-day 
found  a  chicken  coop,  and  in  it  two  chickens,  not 
only  alive  but  clucking  happily  when  they  were 
released.  A  woman's  hat,  half  burned  ;  a  reticule, 
with  part  of  a  hand  still  clinging  to  it;  two  shoes 
and  part  of  a  dress  told  the  story  of  one  unfor- 
tunate's death.  Close  at  hand  a  commercial 
traveler  had  perished.  There  was  his  broken 
valise,  still  full  of  samples,  fragments  of  his  shoes, 
and  some  pieces  of  his  clothing. 

Scenes  like  these  were  occurring  all  over  the 
charred  field  where  men  were  working  with  pick 
and  axe  and  lifting  out  the  poor,  shattered  re- 
mains of  human  beings,  nearly  always  past  recog- 
nition or  identification,  except  by  guess-work,  or 
the  locality  where  they  were  found.  Articles  of 
domestic  use  scattered  through  the  rubbish  helped 
to  tell  who  some  of  the  bodies  were.  Part  of  a 
set  of  dinner  plates  told  one  man  where  in  the 
intangible  mass  his  house  was.  In  one  place  was 
a  photograph  album  with  one  picture  still  recog- 
nizable. From  this  the  body  of  a  child  near  by 
was  identified.  A  man  who  had  spent  a  day  and 
all  night  looking  for  the  body  of  his  wife,  was 
directed  to  her  remains  by  part  of  a  trunk  lid. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

/ 

THE  language  of  pathos  is  too  weak  to  de- 
scribe the  scenes  where  the  living  were  search- 
ing for  their  loved  and  lost  ones  among  the  dead. 

"  That's  Emma,"  said  an  old  man  before  one 
of  the  bodies.  He  said  it  as  coolly  as  though  he 
spoke  of  his  daughter  in  life,  not  in  death,  and  as 
if  it  were  not  the  fifth  dead  child  of  his  that  he 
had  identified. 

"Is  that  you,  Mrs.  James,"  said  one  woman  to 
another  on  the  foot-bridge  over  Stony  Creek. 

"  Yes,  it  is,  and  we  are  all  well,"  said  Mrs. 
James. 

"Oh,  have  you  heard  from  Mrs.  Fenton  ?  " 

"She's  left,"  said  the  first  woman,  "but  Mr. 
Fenton  and  the  children  are  gone." 

The  scenes  at  the  different  relief  agencies, 
where  food,  clothing,  and  provisions  were  given 
out  on  the  order  of  the  Citizens  Committee,  were 
extremely  interesting.  These  were  established 

070 


TH&  JOHNSTOWN  J'LOOD. 

at  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  depot,  at  Peter's 
Hotel,  in  Adams  Street,  and  in  each  of  the 
suburbs. 

At  the  depot,  where  there  was  a  large  force  of 
police,  the  people  were  kept  in  files,  and  the 
relief  articles  were  given  out  with  some  regu- 
larity, but  at  such  a  place  as  Kernsville,  in  the 
suburbs,  the  relief  station  was  in  the  upper  story 
of  a  partly  wrecked  house. 

The  yard  was  filled  with  boxes  and  barrels  of 
bread,  crackers,  biscuit,  and  bales  of  blankets. 
The  people  crowded  outside  the  yard  in  the 
street,  and  the  provisions  were  handed  to  them 
over  the  fence,  while  the  clothing  was  thrown  to 

O 

them  from  the  upper  windows.  There  was  ap- 
parently great  destitution  in  Kernsville. 

"I  don't  care  what  it  is,  only  so  long  as  it  will 
keep  me  warm,"  said  one  woman,  whose  ragged 
clothing  was  still  damp. 

The  stronger  women  pushed  to  the  front  of  the 
fence  and  tried  to  grab  the  best  pieces  of  clothing 
which  came  from  the  windows,  but  the  people  in 
the  house  saw  the  game  and  tossed  the  clothing 
to  those  in  the  rear  of  the  crowd.  A  man  stood 
on  a  barrel  of  flour  and  yelled  out  what  each 
piece  of  clothing  was  as  it  came  down. 

At  each  yell  there  was  a  universal  cry  of 
"  That's  just  what  I  want.  My  boy  is  dying;  he 
must  have  that.  Throw  me  that  for  my  poor 


THE  JOHNSTOWtf  FLOOD.  j  -, -, 

wife,"  and  the  likes  of  that.  Finally  the  clothing 
was  all  gone,  and  there  were  some  people  who 
didn't  get  any.  They  went  away  bewailing  their 
misfortune. 

A  reporter  was  piloted  to  Kernsville  by  Kel- 
log,  a  man  who  had  lost  his  wife  and  baby  in  the 
flood. 

"She  stood  right  thar,  sir,"  said  the  man, 
pointing  to  a  house  whose  roof  and  front  were 
gone.  "  She  climbed  up  thar  when  the  water 
came  first  and  almost  smashed  the  house.  She 
had  the  baby  in  her  arms.  Then  another  house 
came  down  and  dashed  against  ours,  and  my 
wife  went  down  with  the  baby  raised  above  her 
head.  I  saw  it  all  from  a  tree  thar.  I  couldn't 
move  a  step  to  help  'em." 

Coming  back,  the  same  reporter  met  a  man 
whose  face  was  radiant.  He  fairly  beamed  good 
nature  and  kindness. 

"You  look  happy,"  said  the  reporter. 

"  Yes,  sir;   I've  found  my  boy,"  said  the  man. 

"Is  your  house  gone  ?  "  asked  the  reporter. 

"  Oh,  of  course,"  answered  the  man.  "  I've 
lost  all  I've  got  except  my  little  boy,"  and  he  went 
on  his  way  rejoicing. 

A  wealthy  young  Philadelphian  named  Ogle  had 
become  engaged  to  a  Johnstown  lady,  Miss  Carrie 
Diehl.  They  were  to  be  wedded  in  the  middle 
of  June,  and  were  preparing  for  the  ceremony. 


174 


TUE  JOHNSTOWtf  FLOOD. 


The  lover  heard  of  the  terrible  flood,  but,  know- 
ing that  the  residence  of  his  dear  one  was  up  in 
the  hills,  felt  little  fear  for  her  safety.  To  make 
sure,  however,  he  started  for  Johnstown.  Near 
the  Fourth  Street  morgue  he  met  Mr.  Diehl. 

"  Thank  God  !  you  are  safe,"  he  exclaimed,  and 
then  added  :  "Is  Carrie  well ?  " 

"She  was  visiting  in  the  valley  when  the  wave 
came,"  was  the  mournful  reply.  Then  he  beck- 
oned the  young  man  to  enter  the  chamber  of 
death. 

A  moment  later  Mr.  Ogle  was  kneeling  beside 
the  rough  bier  and  was  kissing  the  cold,  white 
face.  From  the  lifeless  finger  he  slipped  a  ring 
and  in  its  place  put  one  of  his  own.  Then  he 
stole  quietly  out. 

"  Mamma  !  mamma  !  "  cried  a  child.  She  had 
recognized  a  body  that  no  one  else  could,  and  in  a 
moment  the  corpse  was  ticketed,  boxed,  and  de- 
livered to  laborers,  who  bore  it  away  to  join  the 
long  funeral  procession. 

A  mother  recognized  a  baby  boy.  "  Keep  it  a 
few  minutes,"  she  asked  the  undertaker  in  charge. 
In  a  few  moments  she  returned,  carrying  in  her 
arms  a  little  white  casket.  Then  she  hired  two 
men  to  bear  it  to  a  cemetery.  No  hearses  were 
seen  in  Johnstown.  Relatives  recognized  their 
dead,  secured  the  coffins,  got  them  carried  the 
best  way  they  could  to  the  morgues,  then  to  the 


THE  JOtlNSTOWtf  FLOOD.  jyt 

graveyards.     A  prayer,    some  tears,   and  a  few 
more  of   the  dead    thousands    were    buried  in 

mother  earth. 

• 

A  frequent  visitor  at  these  horrible  places  was 
David  John  Lewis.  All  over  Johnstown  he  rode 
a  powerful  gray  horse,  and  to  each  one  he  met 
whom  he  knew  he  exclaimed  :  "  Have  you  seen 
my  sisters  ?  "  Hardly  waiting  for  a  reply,  he  gal- 
loped away,  either  to  seek  ingress  into  a  morgue 
or  to  ride  along  the  river  banks.  One  week  be- 
fore Mr.  Lewis  was  worth  $60,000,  his  all  being 
invested  in  a  large  commission  business.  After 
the  flood  he  owned  the  horse  he  rode,  the  clothes 
on  his  back,  and  that  was  all.  In  the  fierce  wave 
were  buried  five  of  his  near  relatives,  sons,  and 
his  sisters  Anna,  Louise,  and  Maggie.  The  lat- 
ter was  married,  and  her  little  boy  and  babe  were 
also  drowned.  They  were  all  dearly  loved  by  the 
merchant,  who,  crazed  with  grief  and  mounted  on 
his  horse,  was  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  ruined 
city. 

William  Gaffney,  an  insurance  agent,  had  a 
very  pitiful  duty  to  perform.  On  his  father's  and 
wife's  side  he  lost  fourteen  relatives,  among  them 
his  wife  and  family.  He  had  a  man  to  take  the 
bodies  to  the  grave,  and  he  himself  dug  graves  for 
his  wife  and  children,  and  buried  them.  In  speak- 
ing of  the  matter  he  said  :  "I  never  thought  that 
I  could  perform  such  a  sad  duty,  but  I  had  to  do 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

it,  and  I  did  it.  No  one  has  any  idea  of  the  feel- 
ings of  a  man  who  acts  as  undertaker,  grave-dig- 
ger, and  pall-bearer  for  his  own  family." 

The  saddest  sight  on  the  river  bank  was  Mr. 
Gilmore,  who  lost  his  wife  and  family  of  five  chil- 
dren. Ever  since  the  calamity  this  old  man  was 
seen  on  the  river  bank  looking  for  his  family.  He 
insisted  on  the  firemen  playing  a  stream  of  water 
on  the  place  where  the  house  formerly  stood,  and 
where  he  supposed  the  bodies  lay.  The  firemen, 
recognizing  his  feelings,  played  the  stream  on  the 
place,  at  intervals,  for  several  hours,  and  at  last 
the  rescuers  got  to  the  spot  where  the  old  man 
said  his  house  formerly  stood.  "  I  know  the 
bodies  are  there,  and  you  must  find  them."  When 
at  last  one  of  the  men  picked  up  a  charred  skull, 
evidently  that  of  a  child,  the  old  man  exclaimed  : 
"  That  is  my  child.  There  lies  my  family  ;  go  on 
and  get  the  rest  of  them."  The  workmen  con- 
tinued, and  in  a  few  minutes  they  came  to  the  re- 
mains of  the  mother  and  three  other  children. 
There  was  only  enough  of  their  clothing  left  to 
recognize  them  by. 

On  the  floor  of  William  Mancarro's  house, 
groaning  with  pain  and  grief;  lay  Patrick  Mad- 
den, a  furnaceman  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Company. 
He  told  of  his  terrible  experience  in  a  voice 
broken  with  emotion.  He  said  :  "  When  the 
Cambria  Iron  Company's  bridge  gave  way  I  was 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  jyy 

in  the  house  of  a  neighbor,  Edward  Garvey.  We 
were  caught  through  our  own  neglect,  like  a  great 
many  others,  and  a  few  minutes  before  the  houses 
were  struck  Garvey  remarked  that  he  was  a  good 
swimmer,  and  could  get  away  no  matter  how  high 
the  water  rose.  Ten  minutes  later  I  saw  him 
and  his  son-in-law  drowned. 

"  No  human  being  could  swim  in  that  terrible 
torrent  of  debris.  After  the  South  Fork  Reser- 
voir broke  I  was  flung  out  of  the  building,  and 
saw,  when  I  rose  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  my 
wife  hanging  upon  a  piece  of  scantling.  She  let 
it  go  and  was  drowned  almost  within  reach  of  my 
arm,  and  I  could  not  help  or  save  her.  I  caught  a 
log  and  floated  with  it  five  or  six  miles,  but  it  was 
knocked  from  under  me  when  I  went  over  the 
dam.  I  then  caught  a  bale  of  hay  and  was  taken 
out  by  Mr.  Morenrow. 

"  My  wife  is  certainly  drowned,  and  six  chil- 
dren. Four  of  them  were  :  James  Madden,  twen- 
ty-three years  old  ;  John,  twenty-one  years  ;  Kate, 
seventeen  years  ;  and  Mary,  nineteen  years. 

A  spring  wagon  came  slowly  from  the  ruins  of 
what  was  once  Cambria.  In  it,  on  a  board  and 
covered  by  a  muddy  cloth,  were  the  remains  of 
Editor  C.  T.  Schubert,  of  the  Johnstown  Free  Press, 
German.  Behind  the  wagon  walked  his  friend 
Benjamin  Gribble.  Editor  Schubert  was  one  of 
the  most  popular  and  well-known  Germans  in  the 


j  7  g  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  2-L  O  OD. 

city.  He  sent  his  three  sons  to  Conemaugh  Bor- 
ough on  Thursday,  and  on  Friday  afternoon  he 
and  his  wife  and  six  other  children  called  at  Mr. 
Cribble's  residence.  They  noticed  the  rise  of  the 
water,  but  not  until  the  flood  from  the  burst  dam 
washed  the  city  did  they  anticipate  danger.  All 
fled  from  the  first  to  the  second  floor.  Then,  as 
the  water  rose,  they  went  to  the  attic,  and  Mr. 
Schubert  hastily  prepared  a  raft,  upon  which  all 
embarked.  Just  as  the  raft  reached  the  bridge,  a 
heavy  piece  of  timber  swept  the  editor  beneath  the 
surface.  The  raft  then  glided  through,  and  all 
the  rest  were  rescued.  Mr.  Schubert's  body  was 
found  beneath  a  pile  of  broken  timbers. 

A  pitiful  sight  was  that  of  an  old,  gray-haired 
man  named  Norn.  He  was  walking  around 
among  the  mass  of  debris,  looking  for  his  family. 
He  had  just  sat  down  to  eat  his  supper  when  the 
crash  came,  and  the  whole  family,  consisting  of 
wife  and  eight  children,  were  buried  beneath  the 
collapsed  house.  He  was  carried  down  the  river 
to  the  railroad  bridge  on  a  plank.  Just  at  the 
bridge  a  cross-tie  struck  him  with  such  force  that 
he  was  shot  clear  upon  the  pier,  and  was  safe. 
But  he  is  a  mass  of  bruises  and  cuts  from  head  to 
foot.  He  refused  to  go  to  the  hospital  until  he 
found  the  bodies  of  his  loved  ones. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

FIVE  days  after  the  disaster  a  bird's-eye  view 
was  taken  of  Johnstown  from  the  top  of  a  precipi- 
tous mountain  which  almost  overhangs  it.  The 
first  thing  that  impresses  the  eye,  wrote  the  observ- 
er, is  the  fact  that  the  proportion  of  the  town  that 
remains  uninjured  is  much  smaller  than  it  seems  to 
be  from  lower-down  points  of  view.  Besides  the 
part  of  the  town  that  is  utterly  wiped  out,  there 
are  two  great  swaths  cut  through  that  portion 
which  from  lower  down  seems  almost  uninjured. 
Beginning  at  Conemaugh,  two  miles  above  the 
railroad  bridge,  along  the  right  side  of  the  valley 
looking  down,  there  is  a  strip  of  an  eighth  by  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  wide,  which  constituted  the  heart 
of  a  chain  of  continuous  towns,  and  which  was 
thickly  built  over  for  the  whole  distance,  upon 
which  now  not  a  solitary  building  stands  except 
the  gutted  walls  of  the  Wood,  Morrell  &  Co.  gen- 
eral store  in  Johnstown,  and  of  the  Gautier  wire 


j  g0  THE  JOHNSTO  WiV  J-L  OOD. 

mill  and  Woodvale  flour  mill  at  Woodvale.  Ex- 
cept for  these  buildings,  the  whole  two-mile  strip 
is  swept  clean,  not  only  of  buildings,  but  of  every- 
thing. It  is  a  tract  of  mud,  rocks,  and  such  other 
miscellaneous  debris  as  might  follow  the  workings 
of  a  huge  hydraulic  placer  mining  system  in  the 
gold  regions.  In  Johnstown  itself,  besides  the 
total  destruction  upon  this  strip,  extending  at  the 
end  to  cover  the  whole  lower  end  of  the  city,  there 
is  a  swath  branching  off  from  the  main  strip  above 
the  general  store  and  running  straight  to  the 
bluff.  It  is  three  blocks  wide  and  makes  a  huge 
"  Y,"  with  the  gap  through  which  the  flood  came 
for  the  base  and  main  strip  and  the  swaths  for 
branches.  Between  the  branches  there  is  a  tri- 
angular block  of  buildings  that  are  still  standing, 
although  most  of  them  are  damaged.  At  a  point 
exactly  opposite  the  corner  where  the  branches  of 
the  "Y"  meet,  and  distant  from  it  by  about  fifty 
yards,  is  one  of  the  freaks  of  the  flood.  The  Bal- 
timore and  Ohio  Railroad  station,  a  square,  two- 
story  brick  building,  with  a  little  cupola  at  the 
apex  of  its  slanting  roof,  is  apparently  uninjured, 
but  really  one  corner  is  knocked  in  and  the  whole 
interior  is  a  total  wreck.  Mow  it  stood  when 
everything  anywhere  near  it  was  swept  away  is  a 
mystery.  Above  the  "Y "-shaped  tract  of  ruin 
there  is  another  still  wider  swath,  bending  around 
in  Stony  Cree^,  save  on  the  left,  where  the  flood 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  I'LOOD. 

surged  when  it  was  checked  and  thrown  back  by 
the:  railroad  bridge.  It  swept  things  clean  before 
it  through  Johnstown  and  made  a  track  of  ruin 
among  the  light  frame  houses  for  nearly  two  miles 
up  the  gap.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  was 
just  at  its  upper  edge.  It  is  still  standing,  and 
from  its  tower  the  bell  strikes  the  hours  regularly 
as  before,  although  everybody  now  is  noticing  that 
it  always  sounds  like  a  funeral.  Nobody  ever" 
noticed  it  before,  but  from  the  upper  side  it  can  be 
seen  that  a  huge  hole  has  been  knocked  through 
the  side  of  the  building.  A  train  of  cars  could  be 
run  through  it.  Inside  the  church  is  filled  with 
all  sorts  of  rubbish  and  ruin.  A  little  further  on 
is  another  church,  which  curiously  illustrates  the 
manner  in  which  fire  and  flood  seemed  determined 
to  unite  in  completing  the  ruin  of  the  city.  Just 
before  the  flood  came  down  the  valley  there  was 
a  terrific  explosion  in  this  church,  supposed  to 
have  been  caused  by  natural  gas.  Amid  all  the 
terrors  of  the  flood,  with  the  water  surging  thirty 
feet  deep  all  around  and  through  it,  the  flames 
blazed  through  the  roof  and  tower,  and  its  fire- 
stained  walls  arise  from  the  debris  of  the  flood, 
which  covers  its  foundations.  Its  ruins  are  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  and  picturesque  sights 
in  the  city. 

Next  to  Adams  Street,  the  road  most  traveled 
in  Johnstown  now  is  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  1LO OD. 

track,  or  rather  bed,  across  the  Stony  Creek,  and 
at  a  culvert  crossing  just  west  of  the  creek.  More 
people  have  been  injured  here  since  the  calamity 
than  at  any  other  place.  The  railroad  ties  which 
hold  the  track  across  the  culvert  are  big"  ones, 

o 

and  their  strength  has  not  been  weakened  by  the 
flood,  but  between  the  ties  and  between  the 
freight  and  passenger  tracks  there  is  a  wide 
space.  .  The  Pennsylvania  trains  from  Johnstown 
have  to  stop,  of  course,  at  the  eastern  end  of  the 
bridge,  and  the  thousands  of  people  whom  they 
daily  bring  to  Johnstown  from  Pittsburgh  have  to 
get  into  Johnstown  by  walking  across  the  track 
to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  depot,  and  then 
crossing  the  pontoon  foot-bridge  that  has  been 
built  across  the  Stony  Creek.  All  day  long  there 
is  a  black  line  of  people  going  back  and  forth 
across  this  course.  Every  now  and  then  there  is 
a  yell,  a  plunge,  a  rush  of  people  to  the  culvert, 
a  call  for  a  doctor,  and  cries  of  "  Help  "  from  un- 
derneath the  culvert.  Some  one,  of  course,  has 
fallen  between  the  freight  and  passenger  tracks, 
or  between  the  ties  of  the  tracks  themselves.  In 
the  night  it  is  particularly  dangerous  traveling  to 
the  Pennsylvania  depot  this  way,  and  people  fall- 
ing then  have  little  chance  of  a  rescue.  So  far  at 
least  thirty  persons  have  fallen  down  the  culvert, 
and  a.  dozen  of  them,  who  have  descended  en- 
tirely to  the  ground,  have  escaped  in  some  mar- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  jgc 

velous  manner  with  their  lives.  Several  Pitts- 
burghers  have  had  their  legs  and  arms  broken, 
and  one  man  cracked  his  collar-bone.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  these  accidents  will  keep  off  the  flock 
cf  curiosity-seekers,  in  some  degree  at  least.  The 
presence  of  these  crowds  seriously  interferes  with 
the  work  of  clearing  up  the  town,  and  affects  the 
residents  here  in  even  a  graver  manner,  for 
though  many  of  those  coming  to  Johnstown  to 
spend  a  day  and  see  the  ruins  bring  something 
to  eat  with  them,  many  do  not  do  so,  and  invade 
the  relief  stands,  taking  the  food  which  is  lavishly 
dealt  out  to  the  suffering.  Though  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  bridge  is  as  strong  as  ever,  appar- 
ently, beyond  the  bridge,  the  embankment  on 
which  the  track  is  built  is  washed  away,  and  peo- 
ple therefore  do  not  cross  the  bridge,  but  leave 
the  track  on  the  western  side,  and,  clambering 
down  the  abutments,  cross  the  creek  on  a  rude 
foot-bridge  hastily  erected,  and  then  through  the 
yard  of  the  Open-Hearth  Works  and  of  the  railroad 
up  to  the  depot.  This  yard  altogether  is  about 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  long,  but  so  deceptive  are 
distances  in  the  valley  that  it  does  not  look  one- 
third  that.  The  bed  of  this  yard,  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  long,  and  about  the  same  distance  wide, 
is  the  most  desolate  place  here.  The  yard  itself 
is  fringed  with  the  crumbling  ruins  of  the  iron 
works  and  of  the  railroad  shops.  The  iron  works 


T11E  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

were  great,  high  brick  buildings,  with  steep  iron 
roofs.  The  ends  of  these  buildings  were  smashed 
in,  and  the  roofs  bend  over  where  the  flood  struck 
them,  in  a  curve. 

But  it  is  the  bed  of  the  yard  itself  that  is  deso- 
late. In  appearance  it  is  a  mass  of  stones  and 
rocks  and  huge  boulders,  so  that  it  seems  a  vast 
quarry  hewn  and  uncovered  by  the  wind.  There 
is  comparatively  little  debris  here,  all  this  having 
been  washed  away  over  to  the  sides  of  the  build- 
ings, in  one  or  two  instances  filling  the  buildings 
completely.  There  is  no  soft  earth  or  mud  on 
the  rocks  at  all,  this  part  of  Johnstown  being 
much  in  contrast  with  the  great  stretch  of  sand 
along  the  river.  In  some  instances  the  dirt  is 
washed  away  to  such  a  depth  that  the  bed-rock  is 
uncovered. 

The  fury  of  the  waters  here  may  be  gathered 
from  this  fact:  piled  up  outside  the  works  of  the 
Open-Hearth  Company  were  several  heaps  of 
massive  blooms — long,  solid  blocks  of  pig  iron, 
weighing  fifteen  tons  each.  The  blooms,  though 
they  were  not  carried  down  the  river,  were  scat- 
tered about  the  yard  like  so  many  logs  of  wood. 
They  will  have  to  be  piled  up  again  by  the  use  of 
a  derrick.  The  Open-Hearth  Iron  Works  people 
are  making  vigorous  efforts  to  clear  their  build- 
ings. The  yards  of  the  company  were  blazing 
last  night  with  the  burning  debris,  but  it  will 


THE  JOIINSTO  WN  PL  OOD.  j  g  ~ 

be  weeks  before  the  company  can   start  opera- 
tions. 

In  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  yard  all  is  activity 
and  bustle.  At  the  relief  station,  and  at  the  head- 
quarters of  General  Hastings,  in  the  signal  tower, 
the  man  who  is  the  head  of  all  operations  there, 
and  the  directing  genius  of  the  place,  is  Lieuten- 
ant George  Miller,  of  the  Fifth  United  States  In- 
fantry. Lieutenant  Miller  was  near  here  on  his 
vacation  when  the  flood  came.  He  was  one  of 
the  first  on  the  spot,  and  was  about  the  only  man 
in  Johnstown  who  showed  some  ability  as  an  or- 
ganizer and  a  disciplinarian.  A  reporter  who 
groped  his  way  across  the  railroad  track,  the  foot- 
bridge, and  the  quarries  and  yards  at  reveille 
found  Lieutenant  Miller  in  a  group  of  the  soldiers 
of  the  Fourteenth  Pennsylvania  Regiment  telling 
them  just  what  to  do. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

TRAVEL  was  resumed  up  the  valley  of  Cone- 
maugh  Creek  for  a  few  miles  about  five  days 
after  the  flood,  and  a  weird  sight  was  presented 
to  the  visitor.  No  pen  can  do  justice  to  it,  yet 
some  impressions  of  it  must  be  recorded.  Every 
one  has  seen  the  light  iron  beams,  shafts,  and 
rods  in  a  factory  lying  in  twisted,  broken,  and 
criss-cross  shape  after  a  fire  has  destroyed  the 
building.  In  the  gap  above  Johnstown  water  has 
picked  up  a  four-track  railroad  covered  with 
trains,  freight,  and  passengers,  and  with  machine 
shops,  a  round-house,  and  other  heavy  buildings 
with  heavy  contents,  and  it  has  torn  the  track 
to  pieces,  twisted,  turned,  and  crossed  it  as  fire 
never  could.  It  has  tossed  huge  freight  locomo- 
tives about  like  barrels,  and  cars  like  packing- 
boxes,  torn  them  to  pieces,  and  scattered  them 
over  miles  of  territory.  It  has  in  one  place  put 
a  stream  of  deep  water,  a  city  block  wide,  be- 

(188) 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  l  go 

tween  the  railroad  and  the  bluff,  and  in  another 
place  it  has  changed  the  course  of  the  river  as 
far  in  the  other  direction  and  left  a  hundred 
yards  inland  the  tracks  that  formerly  skirted  the 
banks. 

Add  to  this  that  in  the  midst  of  all  this  devas- 
tation, fire,  with  the  singular  fatality  that  has  made 
it  everywhere  the  companion  of  the  flood  in  this 
catastrophe,  has  destroyed  a  train  of  vestibule 
cars  that  the  flood  had  wrecked  ;  that  the  pas- 
sengers who  remained  in  the  cars  through  the 
flood  and  until  the  fire  were  saved,  while  their 
companions  who  attempted  to  flee  were  over- 
whelmed and  drowned  ;  and  that  through  it  all 
one  locomotive  stood  and  still  stands  compara- 
tively uninjured  in  the  heart  of  this  disaster,  and 
the  story  of  one  of  the  most  marvelous  freaks 
of  this  marvelous  flood  is  barely  outlined.  That 
locomotive  stands  there  on  its  track  now  with  its 
fires  burning,  smoke  curling  from  the  stack,  and 
steam  from  its  safety  valve,  all  ready  to  go  ahead 
as  soon  as  they  will  build  a  track  down  to  it.  It 
is  No.  1 309,  a  fifty-four  ton,  eight  driver,  class  R, 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  locomotive.  George  Hud- 
son was  its  engineer,  and  Conductor  Sheely  had 
charge  of  its  train.  They,  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
crew,  escaped  by  flight  when  they  saw  the  flood. 

The  wonders  of  this  playground,  where  a  giant 
force  played  with  masses  of  iron,  weighing  scores 


190 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


of  tons  each,  as  a  child  might  play  with  pebbles, 
begins  with  a  bridge,  or  a  piece  of  a  bridge, 
about  thirty  feet  long,  that  stands  high  and  dry 
upon  two  ordinary  stone  abutments  at  Woodvale. 
The  part  of  the  bridge  that  remains  spanned  the 
Pennsylvania  tracks.  The  tracks  are  gone,  the 
bridge  is  gone  on  either  side,  the  river  is  gone  to 
a  new  channel,  the  very  earth  for  a  hundred  yards 
around  has  been  scraped  off  and  swept  away,  but 
this  little  span  remains  perched  up  there,  twenty 
feet  above  everything,  in  the  midst  of  a  desert  of 
ruins — the  only  piece  of  a  bridge  that  is  standing 
from  the  railroad  bridge  *to  South  Forks.  It  is  a 
light  iron  structure,  and  the  abutments  are  not 
unusually  heavy.  That  it  should  be  kept  there, 
when  everything  else  was  twisted  and  torn  to 
pieces,  is  one  other  queer  freak  of  this  flood. 
Near  by  are  the  wrecks  of  two  freight  trains  that 
were  standing  side  by  side  when  the  flood  caught 
them.  The  lower  ends  of  both  trains  are  torn  to 
pieces,  the  cars  tossed  around  in  every  direction, 
and  many  of  them  carried  away.  The  whole  of 
the  train  on  the  track  nearest  the  river  was 
smashed  into  kindling  wood.  Its  locomotive  is 
gone  entirely,  perhaps  because  this  other  train 
acted  as  a  sort  of  buffer  for  the  second  one.  The 
latter  has  twenty-five  or  thirty  cars  that  are  unin- 
jured, apparently.  They  could  move  off  as  soon 
as  that  wonderful  engine,  No.  1309,  that  stands 


THE  JOHNS!  OWN  •FLOOD. 

with  steam  up  at  their  head,  gets  ready  to  pull 
out.  A  second  look,  however,  shows  that  the 
track  is  in  many  places  literally  washed  from  be- 
neath the  cars.  Some  of  the  trucks  also  are 
turned  halfway  around  and  standing  with  wheels 
running  across  the  track.  But  the  force  that  did 
this  left  the  light  wood  box  cars  themselves  un- 
harmed. They  were  loaded  with  dressed  beef 
and  provisions.  They  have  been  emptied  to  sup- 
ply the  hungry  in  Johnstown. 

In  front  of  engine  1309  and  this  train  the 
water  played  one  of  its  most  fantastic  tricks  with 
the  rails.  The  debris  of  trees,  logs,  planks,  and 
every  description  of  wreckage  is  heaped  up  in 
front  of  the  engine  to  the  headlight,  and  is  packed 
in  so  tightly  that  twenty  men  with  ropes  and  axes 
worked  all  day  without  clearing  all  away.  The 
track  is  absolutely  gone  from  the  front  of  the  en- 
gine clear  up  to  beyond  Conemaugh.  Parts  of 
it  lie  about  everywhere,  twisted  into  odd  shapes, 
turned  upside  down,  stacked  crosswise  one  above 
the  other,  and  in  one  place  a  section  of  the  west 
track  has  been  lifted  clear  over  the  right  track, 
runs  along  there  for  a  ways,  and  then  twists  back 
into  its  proper  place.  Even  stranger  are  the 
tricks  the  water  has  played  with  the  rails  where 
they  have  been  torn  loose  from  the  ties.  The 
rails  are  steel  and  of  the  heaviest  weight  used. 
They  were  twisted  as  easily  as  willow  branches  in 


192 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


a  spring  freshet  in  a  country  brook.  One  rail 
lies  in  the  sand  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  "  S." 
More  are  broken  squarely  in  two.  Many  times 
rails  have  been  broken  within  a  few  feet  of  a  fish- 
plate, coupling  them  to  the  next  rail,  and  the 
fragments  are  still  united  by  the  comparatively 
weak  plates.  Every  natural  law  would  seem  to 
show  that  the  first  place  where  they  should  have 
broken  was  at  the  joints. 

There  is  little  to  indicate  the  recent  presence 
of  a  railroad  in  the  stretch  from  this  spot  up  to 
the  upper  part  of  Conemaugh.  The  little  plain 
into  which  the  gap  widened  here,  and  in  which 
stood  the  bulk  of  the  town,  is  wiped  out.  The 
river  has  changed  its  course  from  one  side  of  the 
valley  to  the  other.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
indication  that  the  central  part  of  the  plain  was 
ever  anything  but  a  flood-washed  gulch  in  some 
mountain  region.  At  the  upper  end  of  the  plain, 
surrounded  by  a  desert  of  mud  and  rock,  stands  a 
fantastic  collection  of  ruined  railroad  equipments. 
Three  trains  stood  there  when  the  flood  swept  down 
the  valley.  On  the  outside  was  a  local  passenger 
train  with  three  cars  and  a  locomotive.  It  stands 
there  yet,  the  cars  tilted  by  the  washing  of  the 
tracks,  but  comparatively  uninjured.  Somehow 
a  couple  more  locomotives  have  been  run  into 
the  sand  bank.  In  the  centre  a  freight  train 
stood  on  the  track,  and  a  large  collection  of 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  I-LOOD. 


'93 


smashed  cars  has  its  place  now.  It  was  broken 
all  to  pieces.  Inside  of  all  was  the  day  express, 
with  its  baggage  and  express  cars,  and  at  the  end 
three  vestibule  cars.  It  was  from  this  train  that 
a  number  of  passengers — fifteen  certainly,  and  no 
one  knows  how  many  more — were  lost.  When 
the  alarm  came  most  of  the  passengers  fled  for 
the  high  ground.  Many  reached  it ;  others  hesi- 
tated on  the  way,  tried  to  run  back  to  the  cars, 
and  were  lost.  Others  stayed  on  the  cars,  and, 
after  the  first  rush  of  the  flood,  were  rescued  alive. 
Some  of  the  freight  cars  were  loaded  with  lime, 
and  this  leaped  over  the  vestibule  cars  and  set 
them  on  fire.  All  three  of  the  vestibule  cars 
were  burned  down  to  the  trucks.  These  and  the 
peculiar-shaped  iron  frames  of  the  vestibules  are 
all  that  show  where  the  cars  stood. 

The  reason  the  flood,  that  twisted  heavy  steel 
rails  like  twigs  just  below,  did  not  wipe  out  these 
three  trains  entirely  is  supposed  to  be  that  just  in 
front  of  them,  and  between  them  and  the  flood, 
was  the  round-house,  filled  with  engines.  It  was 
a  large  building,  probably  forty  feet  high  to  the 
top  of  the  ventilators  in  the  roof.  The  wave  of 
wrath,  eye-witnesses  say,  was  so  high  that  these 
ventilators  were  beneath  it.  The  round-house 
was  swept  away  to  its  very  foundations,  and  the 
flood  played  jackstraws  with  the  two  dozen  loco- 
motives lodged  in  it,  but  it  split  the  torrent,  and 


i94 


THE  JOXKSTOWN  7-7.0 Of). 


a  part  of  it  went  clown  each  side  of  the  three 
trains,  saving  them  from  the  worst  of  its  force. 
Thirty-three  locomotives  were  in  and  about  the 
round-house  and  the  repair  shops  near  by.  Of 
these,  twenty-six  have  been  found,  or  at  least 
traced,  part  of  them  being  found  scattered  down 
into  Johnstown,  and  one  tender  was  found  up  in 
Stony  Creek.  The  other  seven  locomotives  are 
gone,  and  not  a  trace  of  them  has  been  found  up 
to  this  time.  It  is  supposed  that  some  of  them 
are  in  the  sixty  acres  of  debris  above  the  bridge 
at  Johnstown.  All  the  locomotives  that  remain 
anywhere  within  sight  of  the  round-house,  all  ex- 
cept those  attached  to  the  trains,  are  thrown  about 
in  every  direction,  every  side  up,  smashed,  broken, 
and  useless  except  for  old  iron.  The  tenders  are 
all  gone.  Being  lighter  than  the  locomotives,  they 
floated  easier,  and  were  quickly  torn  off  and 
carried  away.  The  engines  themselves  were  ap- 
parently rolled  over  and  over  in  whichever  direc- 
tion the  current  that  had  hold  of  them  ran,  and 
occasionally  were  picked  up  bodily  and  slammed 
down  again,  wheels  up,  or  whichever  way  chanced 
to  be  most  convenient  to  the  flood.  Most  of  them 
lie  in  five  feet  of  sand  and  gravel,  with  only  a  part 
showing  above  the  surface.  Some  are  out  in  the 
bed  of  the  river. 

A   strange   but   very  pleasant   feature   of  the 
disaster  in  Conemaugh  itself  is  the  comparatively 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

small  loss  of  life.  As  the  townspeople  figure  it 
out,  there  are  only  thirty-eight  persons  there 
positively  known  to  have  perished  besides  those 
on  the  train.  This  was  partly  because  the  build- 
ings in  the  centre  of  the  valley  were  mostly  stores 
and  factories,  and  also  because  more  heed  ap- 
pears to  have  been  paid  to  the  warnings  that 
came  from  up  the  valley.  At  noon  the  workmen 
in  the  shops  were  notified  that  there  was  danger, 
and  that  they  had  better  go  home.  At  one  o'clock 
word  was  given  that  the  dam  was  likely  to  go, 
and  that  everybody  must  get  on  high  ground. 
Few  remained  in  the  central  part  of  the  valley 
when  the  high  wave  came  through  the  gap. 

Dore  never  dreamed  a  weirder,  ghastlier  pic- 
ture than  night  in  the  Conemaugh  Valley  since 
the  flood  desolated  it.  Darkness  falls  early  from 
the  rain-dropping,  gray  sky  that  has  palled  the 
valley  ever  since  it  became  a  vast  bier,  a  char- 
nel-house fifteen  miles  long.  The  smoke  and 
steam  from  the  placers  of  smouldering  debris 
above  the  bridge  aid  to  hasten  the  night.  Few 
lights  gleam  out,  except  those  of  the  scattered 
fires  that  still  flicker  fitfully  in  the  mass  of  wreck- 
age. Gas  went  out  with  the  flood,  and  oil  has 
been  almost  entirely  lacking  since  the  disaster. 
Candles  are  used  in  those  places  where  people 
think  it  worth  while  to  stay  up  after  dark.  Up 
oh  the  hills  around  the  town  bright  sparks  gleam 


THE  JOHKSTOWN  J-LOOD. 

out  like  lovely  stars  from  the  few  homes  built  so 
high.  Down  in  the  valley  the  gloom  settles  over 
everything,  making  it  look,  from  the  bluffs  around, 
like  some  vast  death-pit,  the  idea  of  entering 
which  brings  a  shudder.  The  gloomy  effect  is 
not  relieved,  but  rather  deepened,  by  the  broad 
beams  of  ghastly,  pale  light  thrown  across  the 
gulf  by  two  or  three  electric  lights  erected  around 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  station.  They  dazzle 
the  eye  and  make  the  gloom  still  deeper. 

Time  does  not  accustom  the  eyes  to  this  ghastly 
scene.  The  flames  rising  and  falling  over  the 
ruins  look  more  like  witches'  bale-fires  the  longer 
they  are  looked  at.  The  smoke-burdened  depths 
in  the  valley  seem  deserted  by  every  living 
thing,  except  that  occasionally,  prowling  ghoul- 
like  about  the  edges  of  the  mass  of  debris,  may 
be  seen,  as  they  cross  the  beams  of  electric  light, 
dark  figures  of  men  who  are  drawn  to  the  spot 
day  and  night,  hovering  over  the  place  where 
some  chance  movement  may  disclose  the  body  of 
a  wife,  mother,  or  daughter  gone  down  in  the 
wreck.  They  pick  listlessly  away  at  the  heaps  in 
one  spot  for  awhile  and  then  wander  aimlessly  off, 
only  to  reappear  at  another  spot,  pulling  fever- 
ishly at  some  rags  that  looked  like  a  dress,  or 
poking  a  stick  into  some  hole  to  feel  if  there  is 
anything  soft  at  the  bottom.  At  one  or  two  places 
the  electric  lights  show,  with  exaggerated  and 


Till-:  JOUXSTOWN  FLOOD.  jgy 

distorted  shadows,  firemen  in  big  hats  and  long- 
rubber  coats,  standing  upon  the  edge  of  the 
bridge,  steadily  holding  the  hose,  from  which  two 
streams  of  water  shoot  far  out  over  the  mass, 
sparkle  for  a  moment  like  silver  in  the  pale  light, 
and  then  drop  downward  into  the  blackness. 

For  noise,  there  is  heavy  splashing  of  the  Con- 
emaugh  over  the  rapids  below  the  bridge,  the  pet- 
ulant gasping  of  an  unseen  fire-engine,  pumping 
water  through  the  hose,  and  the  even  more  rapid 
but  greater  purring  of  the  dynamo-engine  that, 
mounted  upon  a  flat  car  at  one  end  of  the  bridge, 
furnishes  electricity  for  the  lights.  There  is  little 
else  heard.  People  who  are  yet  about  gather  in 
little  groups,  and  talk  in  low  tones  as  they  look 
over  the  dark,  watchfire-beaconed  gulf.  Every- 
body in  Johnstown  looks  over  that  gulf  in  every 
spare  moment,  day  or  night.  Movement  about 
is  almost  impossible,  for  the  ways  are  only  foot- 
paths about  the  bluffs,  irregular  and  slippery. 
Every  night  people  are  badly  hurt  by  falls  over 
bluffs,  through  the  bridge,  or  down  banks.  Lying 
about  under  sheds  in  ruined  buildings,  and  even 
in  the  open  air,  wherever  one  goes,  are  the  forms, 
wrapped  in  blankets,  of  men  who  have  no  better 
place  to  sleep,  resembling  nothing  so  much  as  the 
corpses  that  men  are  seen  always  to  be  carrying 
about  the  streets  in  the  daytime. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ONE  of  the  first  to  reach  Johnstown  from  a 
distance  was  a  New  York  World  correspondent, 
who  on  Sunday  wrote  as  follows  : — 

"  I  walked  late  yesterday  afternoon  from  New 
Florence  to  a  place  opposite  Johnstown,  a  distance 
of  four  miles.  I  describe  what  I  actually  saw.  All 
along  the  way  bodies  were  seen  lying  on  the  river 
banks.  In  one  place  a  woman  was  half  buried  in 
the  mud,  only  a  limb  showing.  In  another  was  a 
mother  with  her  babe  clasped  to  her  breast. 
Further  along  lay  a  husband  and  wife,  their  arms 
wound  around  each  other's  necks.  Probably  fifty 
bodies  were  seen  on  that  one  side  of  the  river, 
and  it  must  be  remembered  that  here  the  current 
was  the  swiftest,  and  consequently  fewer  of  the 
dead  were  landed  among  the  bushes.  On  the 
opposite  side  bodies  could  also  be  seen,  but  they 
were  all  covered  with  mud.  As  I  neared  Johns- 
town the  wreckage  became  grand  in  its  massive 


THE   DEBRIS   ABOVE  THE   PENNSYLVANIA   RAILROAD   HRIDC).. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  2QI 

proportions.  In  order  to  show  the  force  of  the 
current  I  will  say  that  three  miles  below  Johns- 
town I  saw  a  grand  piano  lying  on  the  bank,  and 
not  a  board  or  key  was  broken.  It  must  have 
been  lifted  on  the  crest  of  the  wave  and  laid 
gently  on  the  bank.  In  another  place  were  two 
large  iron  boilers.  They  had  evidently  been 
treated  by  the  torrent  much  as  the  piano  had 
been. 

"The  scenes,  as  I  neared  Johnstown,  were  the 
most  heart-rending  that  man  was  ever  called  to 
look  upon.  Probably  three  thousand  people  were 
scattered  in  groups  along  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road track  and  every  one  of  them  had  a  relative 
lying  dead  either  in  the  wreckage  above,  in  the 
river  below,  or  in  the  still  burning  furnace.  Not 
a  house  that  was  left  standing  was  in  plumb. 
Hundreds  of  them  were  turned  on  their  sides,  and 
in  some  cases  three  or  four  stood  one  on  top  of 
the  other.  Two  miles  from  Johnstown,  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river  from  where  I  walked, 
stood  one-half  of  the  water- works  of  the  Cambria 
Iron  Company,  a  structure  that  had  been  built  of 
massive  stone.  It  was  filled  with  planks  from 
houses,  and  a  large  abutment  of  wreckage  was 
piled  up  fully  fifty  feet  in  front  of  it.  A  little  above, 
on  the  same  side,  could  be  seen  what  was  left  of 
the  Cambria  Iron  Works,  which  was  one  of  the 
finest  plants  in  the  world.  Some  of  the  walls  are 

12 


202  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

still  standing,  it  is  true,  but  not  a  vestige  of  the 
valuable  machinery  remains  in  sight.  The  two 
upper  portions  of  the  works  were  swept  away 
almost  entirely,  and  under  the  pieces  of  fallen 
iron  and  wood  could  'be  seen  the  bodies  of  more 
than  forty  workmen. 

"  At  this  point  there  is  a  bend  in  the  river  and 
the  fiery  furnace  blazing  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
square  above  the  stone  bridge  came  into  view. 

"  '  My  God  ! '  screamed  a  woman  who  was  has- 
tening tip  the  track,  '  can  it  be  that  any  are  in 
the're  ?  ' 

"  'Yes  ;  over  a  thousand,'  replied  a  man  who 
had  just  come  from  the  neighborhood,  and  it  is 
now  learned  that  he  estimated  the  number  at  one 
thousand  too  low. 

"The  scenes  of  misery  and  suffering  and  agony 
and  despair  can  hardly  be  chronicled.  One  man, 
a  clerk  named  Woodruff,  was  reeling  along  in- 
toxicated. Suddenly,  with  a  frantic  shout,  he 
threw  himself  over  the  bank  into  the  flood  and 
would  have  been  carried  to  his  death  had  he  not 
been  caught  by  some  persons  below. 

"  '  Let  me  die,'  he  exclaimed,  when  they  res- 
cued him.  '  My  wife  and  children  are  gone  ;  I 
have  no  use  for  my  life.'  An  hour  later  I  saw 
Woodruff  lying  on  the  ground  entirely  overcome 
by  liquor.  Persons  who  knew  him  said  that  he 
had  never  tasted  liquor  before. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

"  Probably  fifty  barrels  of  whisky  were  washed 
ashore  just  below  Johnstown,  and  those  men  who 
had  lost  everything  in  this  world  sought  solace  in 
the  fiery  liquid.  So  it  was  that  as  early  as  six 
o'clock  last  night  the  shrieks  and  cries  of  women 
were  intermingled  with  drunkards'  howls  and 
curses.  What  was  worse  than  anything,  how- 
ever, was  the  fact  that  incoming  trains  from  Pitts- 
burgh brought  hundreds  of  toughs,  who  joined 
with  the  Slavs  and  Bohemians  in  rifling  the 
bodies,  stealing  furniture,  insulting  women,  and 
endeavoring  to  assume  control  of  any  rescuing 
parties  that  tried  to  seek  the  bodies  under  the 
bushes  and  in  the  limbs  of  trees.  There  was 
no  one  in  authority,  no  one  to  take  command 
of  even  a  citizens'  posse  could  it  have  been  or- 
ganized. A  lawless  mob  seemed  to  control  this 
narrow  neck  of  land  that  was  the  only  approach 
to  the  city  of  Johnstown.  I  saw  persons  take 
watches  from  dead  men's  jackets  and  brutally 
tear  finger-rings  from  the  hands  of  women.  The 
ruffians  also  climbed  into  the  overturned  houses 
and  ransacked  the  rooms,  taking  whatever  they 
thought  valuable.  No  one  dared  check  them  in 
this  work,  and,  consequently,  the  scene  was  not 
as  riotous  as  it  would  have  been  if  the  toughs 
had  not  had  sway.  In  fact,  they  became  beastly 
drunk  after  a  time  and  were  seen  lying  around 
in  a  stupor.  Unless  the  military  is  on  hand 


2OA  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

early  to-morrow  there  may  be  serious  trouble, 
for  each  train  pours  loads  of  people  of  every 
description  into  the  vicinity,  and  Slavs  are  flock- 
ing like  birds  of  prey  from  the  surrounding 
country. 

"  Here  I  will  give  the  latest  conservative  esti- 
mate of  the  dead — it  is  between  seven  and  eight 
thousand  drowned  and  two  thousand  burned.  Thre 
committee  at  Johnstown  in  their  last  bulletin 
placed  the  number  of  lives  lost  at  eight  thousand. 
In  doing  so  they  are  figuring  the  inhabitants  of 
their  own  city  and  the  towns  immediately  adjoin- 
ing. But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  tidal 
wave  swept  ten  miles  through  a  populous  district 
before  it  even  reached  the  locality  over  which  this 
committee  has  supervision.  It  devastated  a  tract 
the  size  and  shape  of  Manhattan  Island.  Here  are 
a  few  facts  that  will  show  the  geographical  outlines 
of  the  terrible  disaster:  The  Hotel  Hurlbut  of 
Johnstown,  a  massive  three-story  building  of  one 
hundred  rooms,  has  vanished.  There  were  in  it 
seventy-five  guests  at  the  time  of  the  flood.  Two 
only  are  now  known  to  be  alive.  The  Merchants' 
Hotel  is  leveled.  How  many  were  inside  it  is 
not  known,  but  as  yet  no  one  has  been  seen  who 
came  from  there  or  heard  of  an  inmate  escaping. 
At  the  Conemaugh  round-house  forty-one  loco- 
motives were  swept  down  the  stream,  and  be- 
fore they  reached  the  stone  bridge  all  the  iron 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  2C>5 

and  steel  work  had  been  torn  from  their  boilers. 
It  is  almost  impossible  in  this  great  catastrophe 
to  go  more  into  details. 

"  I  stood  on  the  stone  bridge  at  six  o'clock 
and  looked  into  the  seething  mass  of  ruin  below 
me.  At  one  place  the  blackened  body  of  a  babe 
was  seen  ;  in  another,  fourteen  skulls  could  be 
counted.  Further  along  the  bones  became  thick- 
er and  thicker,  until  at  last  at  one  place  it  seemed 
as  if  a  concourse  of  people  who  had  been  at  a 
ball  or  entertainment  had  been  carried  in  a  bunch 
and  incinerated.  At  this  time  the  smoke  was 
still  rising  to  the  height  of  fifty  feet,  and  it  is  ex- 
pected that  when  it  dies  down  the  charred  bodies 
will  be  seen  dotting  the  entire  mass. 

"  A  cable  had  been  run  last  night  from  the  end 
of  the  stone  bridge  to  the  nearest  point  across — 
a  distance  of  three  hundred  feet.  Over  this  ca- 
ble was  run  a  trolley,  and  a  swing  was  fastened 
under  it.  A  man  went  over,  and  he  was  the  first 
one  who  visited  Johnstown  since  the  awful  disas- 
ter. I  followed  him  to-day. 

"I  walked  along  the  hillside  and  saw  hundreds 
of  persons  lying  on  the  wet  grass,  wrapped  in 
blankets  or  quilts.  It  was  growing  cold  and  a 
misty  rain  had  set  in.  Shelter  was  not  to  be  had, 
and  houses  on  the  hillsides  that  had  not  been 
swept  away  were  literally  packed  from  top  to 
bottom.  The  bare  necessities  of  life  were  soon 


206  TaE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

at  a  premium,  and  loaves  of  bread  sold  at  fifty 
cents.  Fortunately,  however,  the  relief  train  from 
Pittsburgh  arrived  at  seven  o'clock.  Otherwise 
the  horrors  of  starvation  would  have  been  added. 
All  provisions,  however,  had  to  be  carried  over  a 
rough,  rocky  road  a  distance  of  four  miles  (as  I 
knew,  who  had  been  compelled  to  walk  it),  and 
in  many  cases  they  were  seized  by  the  toughs, 
and  the  people  who  were  in  need  of  food  did 
not  get  it. 

"Rich  and  poor  were  served  alike  by  this 
terrible  disaster.  I  saw  a  girl  standing  in  her 
bare  feet  on  the  river's  bank,  clad  in  a  loose 
petticoat  and  with  a  shawl  over  her  head.  At 
first  I  thought  she  was  an  Italian  woman,  but  her 
face  showed  that  I  was  mistaken.  She  was  the 
belle  of  the  town — the  daughter  of  a  wealthy 
Johnstown  banker — and  this  single  petticoat  and 
shawl  were  not  only  all  that  was  left  her,  but  all 
that  was  saved  from  the  magnificent  residence  of 
her  father.  She  had  escaped  to  the  hills  not  an 
instant  too  soon. 

"The  solicitor  of  Johnstown,  Mr.  George  Mar- 
tin, said  to  me  to-day  : — 

"  '  All  my  money  went  away  in  the  flood.  My 
house  is  gone.  So  are  all  my  clothes,  but,  thank 
God,  my  family  are  safe.'  ' 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  first  train  that  passed  New  Florence,  bound 
east,  was  crowded  with  people  from  Pittsburgh 
and  places  along  the  line,  who  were  going  to  the 
scene  of  the  disaster  with  but  little  hope  of  finding 
their  loved  ones  alive.  It  was  a  heart-rending 
sight.  Not  a  dry  eye  was  in  the  train.  Mothers 
moaned  for  their  children.  Husbands  paced  the 
aisles  and  wrung  their  hands  in  mute  agony. 
Fathers  pressed  their  faces  against  the  windows 
and  endeavored  to  see  something,  they  knew  not 
what,  that  would  tell  them  in  a  measure  of  the 
dreadful  fate  that  their  loved  ones  had  met  with. 
All  along  the  raging  Coaemaugh  the  train 
stopped,  and  bodies  were  taken  on  die  express 
car,  being  carried  by  the  villagers  who  were  out 
along  the  banks.  Oh,  the  horror  and  infinite  pity 
of  it  all !  What  a  journey  has  been  that  of  the 
last  half  hour !  Swollen  corpses  lay  here  and 
there  in  piles  of  cross-ties,  or  on  the  river  banks 
along  the  tangled  greenery. 

(207) 


2og  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

It  was  about  nine  o'clock  when  the  first  pas- 
senger train  since  Friday  came  to  the  New  Flor- 
ence depot  with  its  load  of  eager  passengers. 
They  were  no  idle  travelers,  but  each  had  a  mis- 
sion. Here  and  there  men  were  staring  out  the 
windows  with  red  eyes.  Among  them  were 
tough-looking  Hungarians  and  Italians  who  had 
lost  friends  near  Nineveh,  while  many  were  weep- 
ing, on  all  sides.  Two  of  the  passengers  on  the 
train  were  man  and  wife  from  Johnstown.  He 
was  dignified  and  more  or  less  self-possessed. 
She  was  anxious,  and  tried  hard  to  control  her 
feelings.  From  every  newcomer  and  possible 
source  of  information  she  sought  news. 

"  Ours  is  a  big,  new  brick  house,"  said  she  with 
a  brave  effort,  but  with  her  brown  eyes  moist  and 
red  lips  trembling.  "  It  is  a  three-story  house,  and 
I  don't  think  there  is  any  trouble,  do  you  ?  "  said 
she  to  me,  and  without  waiting  for  my  answer, 
she  continued  with  a  sob,  "There  are  my  four 
children  in  the  house  and  their  nurse,  and  I  guess 
father  and  mother  will  go  over  to  the  house,  don't 
you?" 

In  a  few  moments  all  those  in  the  car  knew  the 
story  of  the  pair,  and  many  a  pitying  glance  was 
cast  at  them.  Their  house  was  one  of  the  first  to 

g°- 

The  huge  wave  struck  Bolivar  just  after  dark, 

and  in  five  minutes  the  Conemaugh  rose  from  six 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

to  forty  feet,  and  the  waters  spread  out  over  the 
whole  country.  Soon  houses  began  floating 
down,  and  clinging  to  the  debris  were  men, 
women,  and  children  shrieking  for  aid.  A  large 
number  of  citizens  gathered  at  the  county  bridge, 
and  they  were  reinforced  by  a  number  from  Gar- 
field,  a  town  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river. 
They  brought  ropes,  and  these  were  thrown  over 
into  the  boiling  waters  as  persons  drifted  by,  in 
efforts  to  save  them.  For  half  an  hour  all  efforts 
were  fruitless,  until  at  last,  when  the  rescuers 
were  about  giving  up  all  hope,  a  little  boy  astride 
a  shingle  roof  managed  to  catch  hold  of  one  of  the 
ropes.  He  caught  it  under  his  left  arm  and  was 
thrown  violently  against  an  abutment,  but  man- 
aged to  keep  hold  and  was  pulled  onto  the  bridge 
amid  the  cheers  of  the  onlookers.  The  lad  was 
at  once  taken  to  Garfield  and  cared  for.  The  boy 
is  about  sixteen  years  old  and  his  name  is  Hess- 
ler.  His  story  of  the  calamity  is  as  follows  : — 

"  With  my  father  I  was  spending  the  day  at  my 
grandfather's  house  in  Cambria  City.  In  the 
house  at  the  time  were  Theodore,  Edward,  and 
John  Kintz,  John  Kintz,  Jr.,  Miss  Mary  Kintz, 
Mrs.  Mary  Kintz,  wife  of  John  Kintz,  Jr. ;  Miss 
Treacy  Kintz,  Mrs.  Rica  Smith,  John  Hirsch  and 
four  children,  my  father,  and  myself.  Shortly  after 
five  o'clock  there  was  a  noise  of  roaring  waters 
and  screams  of  people.  We  looked  out  the  door 


2  i O  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

and  saw  persons  running.  My  father  told  us  to 
never  mind,  as  the  waters  would  not  rise  further. 
But  soon  we  saw  houses  swept  by,  and  then  we 
ran  up  to  the  floor  above.  The  house  was  three 
stones,  and  we  were  at  last  forced  to  the  top  one. 
In  my  fright  I  jumped  on  the  bed.  It  was  an  old- 
fashioned  one,  with  heavy  posts.  The  water  kept 
rising,  and  my  bed  was  soon  afloat.  Gradually 
it  was  lifted  up.  The  air  in  the  room  greV  close, 
and  the  house  was  moving.  Still  the  bed  kept 
rising  and  pressed  the  ceiling.  At  last  the  posts 
pushed  the  plaster.  It  yielded,  and  a  section  of 
the  roof  gave  way.  Then  I  suddenly  found  my- 
self on  the  roof  and  was  being  carried  down 
stream.  After  a  little  this  roof  commenced  to 
part,  and  I  was  afraid  I  was  going  to  be  drowned, 
but  just  then  another  house  with  a  shingle  roof 
floated  by,  and  I  managed  to  crawl  on  it  and 
floated  down  until  nearly  dead  with  cold,  when  I 
was  saved.  After  I  was  freed  from  the  house  I 
did  not  see  my  father.  My  grandfather  was  on  a 
tree,  but  he  must  have  been  drowned,  as  the 
waters  were  rising  fast.  John  Kintz,  Jr.,  was  also 
on  a  tree.  Miss  Mary  Kintz  and  Mrs.  Mary 
Kintz  I  saw  drown.  Miss  Smith  was  also  drowned. 
John  Hirsch  was  in  a  tree,  but  the  four  children 
were  drowned.  The  scenes  were  terrible.  Live 
bodies  and  corpses  were  floating  down  with  me 
and  away  from  me.  I  would  see  a  person  shriek 


THE  JOI1NSTO WN  FL OOD.  2ll 

and  then  disappear.  All  along  the  line  were  peo- 
ple who  were  trying  to  save  us,  but  they  could  do 
nothing,  and  only  a  few  were  caught." 

An  eye-witness  at  Bolivar  Block  station  tells  a 
story  of  heroism  which  occurred  at  the  lower 
bridge  which  crosses  the  Conemaugh  at  that  point. 
A  young  man,  with  two  women,  were  seen  coming 
down  the  river  on  part  of  a  floor.  At  the  upper 
bridge  a  rope  was  thrown  down  to  them.  This 
they  all  failed  to  catch.  Between  the  two  bridges 
he  was  noticed  to  point  toward  the  elder  woman, 
who,  it  is  supposed,  was  his  mother.  He  was 
then  seen  to  instruct  the  women  how  to  catch  the 
rope  which  was  being  lowered  from  the  other 
bridge.  Down  came  the  raft  with  a  rush.  The 
brave  man  stood  with  his  arms  around  the  two 
women.  As  they  swept  under  the  bridge  he 
reached  up  and  seized  the  rope.  He  was  jerked 
violently  away  from  the  two  women,  who  failed  to 
get  a  hold  on  the  rope.  Seeing  that  they  would 
not  be  rescued,  he  dropped  the  rope  and  fell  back 
on  the  raft,  which  floated  on  down  the  river.  The 
current  washed  their  frail  craft  in  toward  the 
bank.  The  young  man  was  enabled  to  seize 
hold  of  a  branch  of  a  tree.  He  aided  the  two 
women  to  get  up  into  the  tree.  He  held  on  with 
his  hands  and  rested  his  feet  on  a  pile  of  drift- 
wood. A  piece  of  floating  debris  struck  the  drift, 
sweeping  it  away.  The  man  hung  with  his  body 


2  j  2  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

immersed  in  the  water.  A  pile  of  drift  soon  col- 
lected, and  he  was  enabled  to  get  another  inse- 
cure footing.  Up  the  river  there  was  a  sudden 
crash,  and  a  section  of  the  bridge  was  swept  away 
and  floated  down  the  stream,  striking  the  tree  and 
washing  it  away.  All  three  were  thrown  into  the 
water  and  were  drowned  before  the  eyes  of  the 
horrified  spectators,  just  opposite  the  town  of 
Bolivar. 

At  Bolivar  a  man,  woman,  and  child  were 
seen  floating  down  in  a  lot  of  drift.  The  mass 
soon  began  to  part,  and,  by  desperate  efforts,  the 
husband  and  father  succeeded  in  getting  his  wife 
and  little  one  on  a  floating  tree.  Just  then  the 
tree  was  washed  under  the  bridge,  and  a  rope 
was  thrown  out.  It  fell  upon  the  man's  shoulders. 
He  saw  at  a  glance  that  he  could  not  save  his 
dear  ones,  so  he  threw  the  means  of  safety  on 
one  side  and  clasped  in  his  arms  those  who  were 
with  him.  A  moment  later  and  the  tree  struck  a 
floating  house.  It  turned  over,  and  in  an  instant 
the  three  persons  were  in  the  seething  waters, 
being  carried  to  their  death. 

An  instance  of  a  mother's  love  at  Bolivar  is 
told.  A  woman  and  two  children  were  floating 
down  the  torrent.  The  mother  caught  a  rope, 
and  tried  to  hold  it  to  her  and  her  babe.  It  was 
impossible,  and  with  a  look  of  anguish  she  relin- 
quished the  rope  and  sank  with  her  little  ones. 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

A  family,  consisting  of  father  and  mother  and 
nine  children,  were  washed  away  in  a  creek  at 
Lockport.  The  mother  managed  to  reach  the 
shore,  but  the  husband  and  children  were  carried 
out  into  the  Conemaugh  to  drown.  The  woman 
was  crazed  over  the  terrible  event. 

A  little  girl  passed  under  the  Bolivar  bridge 
just  before  dark.  She  was  kneeling  on  part  of  a 
floor,  and  had  her  hands  clasped  as  if  in  prayer. 
Every  effort  was  made  to  save  her",  but  they  all 
proved  futile.  A  railroader  who  was  standing 
by  remarked  that  the  piteous  appearance  of  the 
little  waif  brought  tears  to  his  eyes.  All  night 
long  the  crowd  stood  about  the  ruins  of  the  bridge 
which  had  been  swept  away  at  Bolivar.  The 
water  rushed  past  with  a  roar,  carrying  with  it 
parts  of  houses,  furniture,  and  trees.  No  more 
living  persons  are  being  carried  past.  Watchers, 
with  lanterns,  remained  along  the  banks  until 
daybreak,  when  the  first  view  of  the  awful  devas- 
tation of  the  flood  was  witnessed.  Along  the 
bank  lay  the  remnants  of  what  had  once  been 
dwelling-houses  and  stores  ;  here  and  there  was 
an  uprooted  tree.  Piles  of  drift  lay  about,  in 
some  of  which  bodies  of  the  victims  of  the  flood 
will  be  found. 

Harry  Fisher,  a  young  telegraph  operator,  who 
was  at  Bolivar  when  the  first  rush  of  waters  be- 
gan, says:  "We  knew  nothing  of  the  disaster 


214 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


until  we  noticed  the  river  slowly  rising,  and  then 
more  rapidly.  News  reached  us  from  Johnstown 
that  the  dam  at  South  Fork  had  burst.  Within 
three  hours  the  water  in  the  river  rose  at  least 
twenty  feet.  Shortly  before  six  o'clock  ruins  of 
houses,  beds,  household  utensils,  barrels,  and 
kegs  came  floating  past  the  bridges.  At  eight 
o'clock  the  water  was  within  six  feet  of  the  road- 
bed of  the  bridge.  The  wreckage  floated  past, 
without  stopping,  for  at  least  two  hours.  Then  it 
began  to  lessen,  and  night  coming  suddenly  upon 
us,  we  could  see  no  more.  The  wreckage  was 
floating  by  for  a  long  time  before  the  first  living 
persons  passed.  Fifteen  people  that  I  saw  were 
carried  down  by  the  river.  One  of  these,  a  boy, 
was  saved,  and  three  of  them  were  drowned  just 
directly  below  the  town.  Hundreds  of  animals 
lost  their  lives.  The  bodies  of  horses,  dogs,  and 
chickens  floated  past  in  numbers  that  could  not 
be  counted." 

Just  before  reaching  Sang  Hollow,  the  end  of 
the  mail  line  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  is 
"  S.  O."  signal  tower,  and  the  men  in  it  told  pifr- 
eous  stories  of  what  they  saw. 

A  beautiful  girl  came  down  on  the  roof  of  a 
building,  which  was  swung  in  near  the  tower. 
She  screamed  to  the  operators  to  save  her,  and 
one  big,  brawny,  brave  fellow  walked  as  far  into 
the  river  as  he  could,  and  shouted  to  her  to  guide 


THE  JOHNS  TO  IV N  FL  O  OD.  2  I  5 

herself  into  shore  with  a  bit  of  plank.  She  was  a 
plucky  girl,  full  of  nerve  and  energy,  and  stood 
upon  her  frail  support  in  evident  obedience  to  the 
command  of  the  operator.  She  made  two  or  three 
bold  strokes,  and  actually  stopped  the  course  of 
the  raft  for  an  instant.  Then  it  swerved,  and 
went  out  from  under  her.  She  tried  to  swim 
ashore,  but  in  a  few  seconds  she  was  lost  in  the 
swirling  water.  Something  hit  her,  for  she  lay  on 
her  back,  with  face  pallid  and  expressionless. 

Men  and  women,  in  dozens,  in  pairs,  and  sin- 
gly ;  children,  boys,  big  and  little,  and  wee  babies, 
were  there  among  the  awful  confusion  of  water, 
drowning,  gasping,  struggling,  and  fighting  des- 
perately for  life.  Two  men,  on  a  tiny  raft,  shot 
into  the  swiftest  part  of  the  current.  They 
crouched  stolidly,  looking  at  the  shores,  while  be- 
tween them,  dressed  in  white,  and  kneeling  with 
her  face  turned  heavenward,  was  a  girl  six  or 
seven  years  old.  She  seemed  stricken  with  paral- 
ysis until  she  came  opposite  the  tower,  and  then 
she  turned  her  face  to  the  operator.  ^  She  was  so 
close  they  could  see  big  tears  on  her  cheeks,  and 
her  pallor  was  as  death.  The  helpless  men  on 
shore  shouted  to  her  to  keep  up  her  courage,  and 
she  resumed  her  devout  attitude,  and  disappeared 
under  the  trees  of  a  projecting  point  a  short  dis- 
tance below.  "We  couldn't  see  her  come  out 
again,"  said  the  operator,  "and  that  was  all  of  it." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

AN  interesting  story  of  endeavor  was  related 
on  Monday  by  a  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
Sun,  who  made  his  way  to  the  scene  of  disaster. 
This  is  what  he  wrote : — 

Although  three  days  have  passed  since  the 
disaster,  the  difficulty  of  reaching  the  desolated 
region  is  still  so  great  that,  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, no  one  would  dream  of  attempting 
the  trip.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  cannot  get 
within  several  miles  of  Johnstown,  and  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  get  on  their  trains  even  at 
that.  They  run  one,  two,  or  three  trains  a  day  on 
the  time  of  the  old  through  trains,  and  the  few 
cars  on  each  train  are  crowded  with  passengers 
in  a  few  minutes  after  the  gates  open.  Then 
the  sale  of  tickets  is  stopped,  the  gates  are  closed, 
and  all  admission  to  the  train  denied.  No  extra 
cars  will  be  put  on,  no  second  section  sent  out, 
and  no  special  train  run  on  any  account,  for  love 

(216) 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  2  I Q 

or  money.  The  scenes  at  the  station  when  the 
gates  are  shut  are  sorrowful.  Men  who  have 
come  hundreds  of  miles  to  search  for  friends  or 
relatives  among  the  dead  stand  hopelessly  before 
the  edict  of  the  blue-coated  officials  from  eight  in 
the  morning  until  one  in  the  afternoon.  There  is 
no  later  train  on  the  Pennsylvania  road  out  of 
Pittsburgh,  and  the  agony  of  suspense  is  thus 
prolonged.  Besides  that,  the  one  o'clock  train  is 
so  late  in  getting  to  Sang  Hollow  that  the  work 
of  beginning  a  search  is  practically  delayed  until 
the  next  morning. 

The  Sun 's  special  correspondents  were  of  a 
party  of  fifteen  or  twenty  business  men  and  others 
who  had  come  from  the  East  by  way  of  Buffalo, 
and  who  reached  Pittsburgh  in  abundant  time  to 
have  taken  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  train  at 
eight  o'clock,  had  the  company  wished  to  carry 
them.  With  hundreds  of  others  they  were  turned 
away,  and  appeals  even  to  the  highest  official  of 
the  road  were  useless,  whether  in  the  interest  of 
newspaper  enterprise  or  private  business,  or  in 
the  sadder  but  most  frequent  case  where  men 
prayed  like  beggars  for  an  opportunity  to  meas- 
ure the  extent  of  their  bereavement,  or  find  if,  by 
some  happy  chance,  one  might  not  be  alive  out 
of  a  family.  The  sight-seeing  and  curious  crowd 
was  on  hand  early,  and  had  no  trouble  in  getting 
on  the  train.  Those  who  had  come  from  distant 
13 


22O  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

cities,  and  whose  mission  was  of  business  or  sor- 
row, were  generally  later,  and  were  left.  No  ef- 
fort was  made  to  increase  the  accommodations  of 
the  train  for  those  who  most  needed  them.  The 
Suns  men  had  traveled  a  thousand  miles  around 
to  reach  Pittsburgh.  Their  journey  had  covered 
three  sides  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  from 
Philadelphia  at  the  extreme  southeast,  through 
New  Jersey  and  New  York  to  Buffalo  by  way  of 
Albany  and  the  New  York  Central,,  and  thence 
by  the  Lake  Shore  to  Ashtabula,  O.,  passing 
through  Erie  at  the  extreme  northwest  corner  of 
the  State;  thence  down  by  the  Pittsburgh  and 
Lake  Erie  road  to  Youngstown,  O.,  and  so  into 
Pittsburgh  by  the  back  door,  as  it  were.  Circum- 
stances and  the  edict  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road were  destined  to  carry  them  still  further 
around,  more  than  a  hundred  miles,  nearly  south 
of  Pittsburgh,  almost  across  the  line  into  Mary- 
land, and  thence  fifty  miles  up  before  they  reached 
their  destination. 

The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  ordinarily 
does  not  attempt  to  compete  for  business  from 
Pittsburgh  into  Johnstown.  Its  only  route  be- 
tween those  two  cities  leads  over  small  branch 
lines  among  the  mountains  south  of  Johnstown, 
and  is  over  double  the  length  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania main  line  route.  The  first  train  to  reach 
Johnstown,  however,  was  one  over  the  Baltimore 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD.  2  2  I 

and  Ohio  lines,  and,  although  they  made  no  at- 
tempt to  establish  a  regular  line,  they  did  on  Sun- 
day get  two  relief  trains  out  of  Pittsburgh  and 
into  Johnstown.  Superintendent  Patten,  of  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio,  established  headquarters  in 
a  box  car  two  miles  south  of  Johnstown,  and  tele- 
graphed to  Acting  Superintendent  Mcllvaine,  at 
Pittsburgh,  to  take  for  free  transportation  all 
goods  offered  for  the  relief  of  the  sufferers.  No 
passenger  trains  were  run,  however,  except  the 
regular  trains  on  the  main  line  for  Cumberland, 
Md.,  and  the  branches  from  the  main  line  to 
Johnstown  were  used  entirely  by  wildcat  trains 
running  on  special  orders,  with  no  object  but  to 
get  relief  up  as  quickly  as  possible.  Nothing  had 
left  Pittsburgh  for  Johnstown,  however,  to-day 
up  to  nine  o'clock.  Arrangements  were  made 
for  a  relief  train  to  go  out  early  in  the  afternoon, 
to  pick  up  cars  of  contributed  goods  at  the  sta- 
tions along  the  line  and  get  them  into  Johnstown 
some  time  during  the  night.  "  No  specials  "  was 
also  the  rule  on  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  but  Act- 
ing Superintendent  Mcllvaine  recognized  in  the 
Sun,  with  its  enormous  possibilities  in  the  way  of 
spreading  throughout  the  country  the  actual  situa- 
tion of  affairs  in  the  devastated  district,  a  means 
of  awaking  the  public  to  the  extent  of  the  disaster 
that  would  be  of  more  efficient  relief  to  the  suffer- 
ing people  than  even  train-loads  of  food  and  cloth- 


222  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

ing.  The  Sun's  case  was  therefore  made  excep 
tional,  and  when  the  situation  was  explained  to  him 
he  consented,  for  a  sum  that  appalled  the  repre- 
sentatives of  some  other  papers  who  heard  it,  but 
which  was,  for  the  distance  to  be  covered,  very 
fair,  to  set  the  Suns  men  down  in  Johnstown  at 
the  earliest  moment  that  steam  and  steel  and  iron 
could  do  it. 

In  fifteen  minutes  one  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  light  passenger  engines,  with  Engineer  W. 
E.  Scott  in  charge  and  Fireman  Charles  Hood  for 
assistant,  was  hitched  to  a  single  coach  out  in  the 
yard.  Conductor  W.  B.  Clancy  was  found  some- 
where about  and  put  in  command  of  the  expedi- 
tion. Brakeman  Dan  Lynn  was  captured  just  as 
he  was  leaving  an  incoming  train,  and  although 
he  had  been  without  sleep  for  a  day,  he  readily 
consented  to  complete  the  crew  of  the  Stms 
train.  There  was  no  disposition  to  be  hoggish  in 
the  matter,  and  at  a  time  like  this  the  great  thing 
was  to  get  the  best  possible  information  as  to  af- 
fairs at  Johnstown  spread  over  the  country  in  the 
least  possible  time.  The  facilities  of  the  train 
were  therefore  placed  at  the  disposal  of  other 
newspaper  men  who  were  willing  to  share  in  the 
expense.  None  of  them,  however,  availed  them- 
selves of  this  chance  to  save  practically  a  whole 
day  in  reaching  the  scene,  except  the  artist  repre- 
senting Harper's  Weekly,  who  had  accompanied 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  fLOOD. 

the  Sun  men  this  far  in  their  race  against  time 
from  the  East.  As  far  as  the  New  York  papers 
were  concerned,  there  were  no  men  except  those 
from  the  SIM  to  take  the  train.  If  any  other  New 
York  newspaper  men  had  yet  reached  Pittsburgh 
at  all,  they  were  not  to  be  found  around  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  station,  where  the  Sun  extended 
its  invitation  to  the  other  representatives  of  the 
press.  There  were  a  number  of  Western  news- 
paper men  on  hand,  but  journalism  in  that  section 
is  not  accustomed  to  big  figures  except  in  circula- 
tion affidavits,  and  they  were  staggered  at  the  idea 
of  paying  even  a  share  of  the  expense  that  the  Sun 
was  bearing  practically  alone. 

At  9.15  A.  M.,  therefore,  when  the  special  train 
pulled  out  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  station,  it 
had  for  passengers  only  the  Sun  men  and  Har- 
per s  artist.  As  it  started  Acting  Superintendent 
Mcllvaine  was  asked  : — 

"  How  quickly  can  we  make  it  ?  " 

'•Well,  it's  one  hundred  and  forty-six  miles," 
he  replied,  "  and  it's  all  kinds  of  road.  There's 
an  accommodation  train  that  you  will  have  to  look 
out  for  until  you  pass  it,  and  that  will  delay  you. 
It's  hard  to  make  any  promise  about  time." 

"  Can  we  make  it  in  five  hours  ?  "  he  was  asked. 

"  I  think  you  can  surely  do  that,"  he  replied. 

How  much  better  than  the  acting  superintend- 
ent's word  was  the  performance  of  Engineer 


2 2  A  THE  JOHNSTOWN  1-LOOD. 

Scott  and  his  crew  this  story  shows.  The  special, 
after  leaving  Pittsburgh,  ran  wild  until  it  got  to 
McKeesport,  sixteen  miles  distant.  At  this  point 
the  regular  train,  which  left  Pittsburgh  at  8.40, 
was  overtaken.  The  regular  train  was  on  a  sid 
ing,  and  the  special  passed  through  the  city  with 
but  a  minute's  stop.  Then  the  special  had  a  clear 
track  before  it,  and  the  engineer  drove  his  ma- 
chine to  the  utmost  limit  of  speed  consistent  with 
safety.  It  is  nineteen  miles  from  McKeesport  to 
West  Newton,  and  the  special  made  this  distance 
in  twenty  minutes,  the  average  time  of  over  a 
mile  a  minute  being  much  exceeded  for  certain 
periods.  The  curves  of  the  road  are  frightful, 
and  at  times  the  single  car  which  composed  the 
train  was  almost  swung  clear  off  the  track.  The 
Sun  men  recalled  vividly  the  ride  of  Horace 
Greeley  with  Hank  Monk,  and  they  began  to  re- 
flect that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  riding  so  fast 
that  they  might  not  be  able  to  reach  Johnstown 
at  all.  From  Layton's  to  Dawson  the  seven  and 
one-half  miles  were  made  in  seven  minutes,  while 
the  fourteen  miles  from  Layton's  to  Connellsville 
were  covered  in  fourteen  minutes  precisely.  On 
the  tender  of  the  engine  the  cover  of  the  water- 
tank  flew  open  and  the  water  splashed  out.  Coal 
flew  from  the  tender  in  great  lumps,  and  dashed 
against  the  end  of  the  car.  Inside  the  car  the 
newspaper  men's  grips  and  belongings  went  fly- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  325 

ing  around  on  the  floor  and  over  seats  like  mad. 
The  Allegheny  River,  whose  curves  the  rails  fol- 
lowed, seemed  to  be  right  even  with  the  car  win- 
dows, so  that  one  could  look  straight  down  into 
the  water,  so  closely  to  it  was  the  track  built 
In  Connellsville  there  was  a  crowd  to  see  the 
special.  On  the  depot  was  the  placard  : — 

"  Car  will  leave  at  3  P.  M.  to  day  with  food  and 
clothing  for  Johnstown." 

In  Connellsville  the  train  stopped  five  minutes 
and  underwent  a  thorough  inspection.  Then  it 
shoved  on  again.  At  Confluence,  twenty-seven 
miles  from  Connellsville,  a  bridge  of  a  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  branch  line  across  the  river  was  washed 
away,  but  this  didn't  interfere  with  the  progress 
of  the  special.  For  sixty  miles  on  the  road  is  up 
hill  at  a  grade  of  sixty-five  feet  to  the  mile,  and 
the  curves,  if  anything,  are  worse,  but  there  was 
no  appreciable  diminution  in  the  speed  of  the 
train.  Just  before  reaching  Rockwood  the  first 
real  traces  of  the  flood  were  apparent.  The 
waters  of  the  Castlemore  showed  signs  of  having 
been  recently  right  up  to  the  railroad  tracks,  and 
driftwood  and  debris  of  all  descriptions  lay  at  the 
side  of  the  rails.  Nearly  all  bridges  on  the  coun- 
try roads  over  the  river  were  washed  away  and 
their  remnants  scattered  along  the  banks. 

Rockwood  was  reached  at  12.05  P-  M.  Rock- 
wood  is  eighty-seven  miles  from  McKeesport,  and 


226  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

this  distance,  which  is  up  an  extremely  steep 
grade,  was  therefore  made  in  two  hours,%  which 
includes  fifteen  minutes'  stop.  The  distance  cov- 
ered from  Pittsburgh  was  one  hundred  and  two 
miles  in  two  hours.  Rockwood  is  the  junction  of 
the  main  line  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  road  at 
its  Cambria  branch,  which  runs  to  Johnstown. 
The  regular  local  train  from  there  to  Johnstown 
was  held  to  allow  the  Suns  special  to  pass  first. 

The  Sun's  special  left  Rockwood  at  12.20  in 
charge  of  Engineer  Oliver,  who  assumed  charge 
at  that  point.  He  said  that  the  branch  to  Johns- 
town was  a  mountain  road,  with  steep  grades, 
very  high  embankments,  and  damaged  in  spots, 
and  that  he  would  have  to  use  great  precaution 
in  running.  He  gave  the  throttle  a  yank  and  the 
train  started  with  a  jump  that  almost  sent  the 
newspaper  men  on  their  heads.  Things  began  to 
dance  around  the  car  furiously  as  the  train  dashed 
along  at  a  great  pace,  and  the  reporters  began  to 
wonder  what  Engineer  Oliver  meant  by  his  talk 
about  precautions.  All  along  the  route  up  the 
valley  at  the  stations  were  crowds  of  people,  who 
stared  in  silence  as  the  train  swept  by.  On  the 
station  platforms  were  piled  barrels  of  flour,  boxes 
of  canned  goods,  and  bales  of  clothing.  The 
roads  leading  in  from  the  country  to  the  stations 
were  full  of  farmers'  wagons  laden  with  produce 
of  all  kinds  for  the  sufferers. 


7777?  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  227 

The  road  from  Rockwood  to  Johnstown  lies  in 
a  deep  gully,  at  the  bottom  of  which  flows  little 
Stony  Creek,  now  swollen  to  a  torrent.  Wooden 
troughs  under  the  track  carry  off  the  water  which 
trickles  down  from  the  hills,  otherwise  the  track 
would  be  useless.  As  it  is  there  are  frequent 
washouts,  which  have  been  partly  filled  in,  and 
for  ten  miles  south  of  Johnstown  all  trains  have  to 
be  run  very  slowly.  The  branches  of  trees  above 
the  bank  which  have  been  blown  over  graze  the 
cars  on  the  railroad  tracks.  The  Suns  special 
arrived  in  Johnstown  at  two  o'clock. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

The  experience  of  the  newspaper  correspond- 
ents in  the  Conemaugh  valley  was  the  experience 
of  a  lifetime.  Few  war  correspondents,  even, 
have  been  witnesses  of  such  appalling  scenes  of 
horror  and  desolation.  Day  after  day  they  were 
busy  recording  the  annals  of  death  and  despair, 
conscious,  meanwhile,  that  no  expressions  of  ac- 
cumulated pathos  at  their  command  could  do  jus- 
tice to  the  theme.  They  had  only  to  stand  in  the 
street  wherever  a  knot  of  men  had  gathered,  to 
hear  countless  stories  of  thrilling  escapes.  Hun- 
dreds of  people  had  such  narrow  escapes  that 
they  hardly  dared  to  believe  that  they  were  saved 
for  hours  after  they  reached  solid  ground.  Wil- 
liam Wise,  a  young  man  who  lived  at  Woodvale, 
was  walking  along  the  road  when  the  rush  of 
water  came  down  the  valley.  He  started  to  rush 
up  the  side  of  the  hills,  but  stopped  to  help  a  young 
woman;  Ida  Zidstein,  to  escape ;  lost  too  much  time, 
and  was  forced  to  drag  the  young  woman  upon  a 

high  pile  of  metal  near  the  road.     They  had  clung 
228 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  229 

there  several  hours,  and  thought  that  they  could 
both  escape,  as  the  metal  pile  was  not  exposed  to 
the  full  force  of  the  torrent.  A  telegraph  pole 
came  dashing  down  the  flood,  its  top  standing 
above  the  water,  from  which  dangled  some  wires. 
The  pole  was  caught  in  an  eddy  opposite  the  pile. 
It  shot  in  toward  the  two  who  were  clinging  there. 
As  the  pole  swung  around,  the  wires  came  through 
the  air  like  a  whip-lash,  and  catching  in  the  hair  of 
the  young  woman,  dragged  her  down  to  instant 
death.  The  young  man  remained  on  the  heap 
of  metal  for  hours  before  the  water  subsided  so  as 
to  allow  him  to  escape. 

One  man  named  Homer,  with  his  child,  age  six, 
was  on  one  of  the  houses  which  were  first  carried 
away.  He  climbed  to  the  roof  and  held  fast  there 
for  four  hours,  floating  all  the  way  to  Bolivar,  fif- 
teen miles  below. 

A  young  hero  sat  upon  the  roof  of  his  father's 
house,  holding  his  mother  and  little  sister.  Once 
the  house  swung  in  toward  a  brick  structure  which 
still  rested  on  its  foundation.  As  one  house  struck 
the  other,  the  boy  sprang  into  one  of  the  windows. 
As  he  turned  to  rescue  his  mother  and  sister,  the 
house  swung  out  again,  and  the  boy,  seeing  that 
there  was  no  possibility  of  getting  them  off,  leaped 
back  to  their  side.  A  second  time  the  house  was 
stopped  —this  time  by  a  tree.  The  boy  helped 
his  mother  and  sister  to  a  place  of  safety  in  the 


2  3O  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

tree,  but  before  he  could  leave  the  roof,  the  house 
was  swept  on  and  he  was  drowned. 

One  man  took  his  whole  family  to  the  roof  of 
his  floating  house.  He  and  one  child  escaped  to 
another  building,  but  his  wife  and  five  children 
were  whirled  around  for  hours,  and  finally  carried 
down  to  the  bridge  where  so  many  people  perished 
in  the  flames.  They  were  all  rescued. 

District  Attorney  Rose,  his  wife,  two  brothers 
and  two  sisters  were  swept  across  the  lower  por- 
tion of  the  town.  They  had  been  thrown  into 
the  water,  and  were  swimming,  the  men  assisting 
the  women.  Finally,  they  got  into  a  back  current, 
and  were  cast  ashore  at  the  foot  of  the  hills  back 
of  Knoxville. 

One  merchant  of  Johnstown,  after  floating  about 
upon  a  piece  of  wreckage  for  hours,  was  carried 
down  to  the  stone  bridge.  After  a  miraculous 
escape  from  being  burned  to  death,  he  was  res- 
cued and  carried  ashore.  He  was  so  dazed  and 
terrified  by  his  experience,  however,  that  he  walked 
off  the  bridge  and  broke  his  neck. 

One  man  who  was  powerless  to  save  his  wife, 
after  he  had  leaped  from  a  burning  building  to  a 
house  floating  by,  was  driven  insane  by  her  shrieks 
for  help. 

An  old  gentleman  of  Verona  rescued  a  modern 
Moses  from  the  bulrushes.  Verona  is  on  the  cast 
bank  of  the  Allegheny  river,  twelve  miles  above 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  231 

Pittsburg.  Mr.  McCutcheon,  while  ctanding  on 
the  river  bank  watching  the  drift  floating  by,  was 
compelled  by  instinct  to  take  a  skiff  and  row  out 
to  one  dense  mass  of  timber.  As  he  reached  it, 
he  was  startled  to  find  in  the  centre,  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  water,  a  cradle  covered  with  the 
clothing.  As  he  lifted  the  coverings  aside  a  pretty 
five-months-old  boy  baby  smiled  on  him.  The 
little  innocent,  unconscious  of  the  scenes  it  had 
passed  through,  crowed  with  delight  as  the  old 
man  lifted  it  tenderly,  cradle  and  all,  into  his  skiff 
and  brought  it  ashore. 

Among  the  miraculous  escapes  is  that  of  George 
J.  Lea  and  family.  When  the  rush  of  water  came 
there  were  eight  people  on  the  roof  of  Lea's  house. 
The  house  swung  around  and  floated  for  nearly 
half  an  hour  before  it  struck  the  wreck  above  the 
stone  bridge.  A  three-year-old  girl,  with  sunny, 
golden  hair  and  dimpled  cheeks,  prayed  all  the 
while  that  God  would  save  them,  and  it  seemed 
that  God  really  answered  the  prayer  and  directed 
the  house  against  the  drift,  enabling  every  one  of 
the  eight  to  get  off. 

H.  M.  Bennett  and  S.  W.  Keltz,  engineer  and 
conductor  of  engine  No.  1165  and  the  extra 
freight,  which  happened  to  be  lying  at  South  Fork 
when  the  dam  broke,  tell  a  graphic  story  of  their 
wonderful  flight  and  escape  on  the  locomotive 
before  the  advancing  flood.  Bennett  and  Keltz 


232  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD. 

were  in  the  signal  tower  awaiting  orders.  The 
fireman  and  flagman  were  on  the  engine,  and  two 
brakemen  were  asleep  in  the  caboose.  Suddenly 
the  men  in  the  tower  heard  a  roaring  sound  in  the 
valley  above  them.  They  looked  in  that  direction 
and  were  almost  transfixed  with  horror  to  see,  two 
miles  above  them,  a  huge  black  wall  of  water,  at 
least  150  feet  in  height,  rushing  down  the  valley. 
The  fear-stricken  men  made  a  rush  for  the  loco- 
motive, at  the  same  time  giving  the  alarm  to  the 
sleeping  brakemen  in  the  caboose,  but  with  no 
avail.  It  was  impossible  to  aid  them  further,  how- 
ever, so  Bennett  and  Keltz  cut  the  engine  loose 
from  the  train,  and  the  engineer,  with  one  wild 
wrench,  threw  the  lever  wide  open,  and  they  were 
away  on  a  mad  race  for  life.  It  seemed  that  they 
would  not  receive  momentum  enough  to  keep 
ahead  of  the  flood,  and  they  cast  one  despairing 
glance  back.  Then  they  could  see  the  awful 
deluge  approaching  in  its  might.  On  it  came, 
rolling  and  roaring,  tossing  and  tearing  houses, 
sheds  and  trees  in  its  awful  speed  as  if  they  were 
toys.  As  they  looked,  they  saw  the  two  brake- 
men  rush  out  of  the  caboose,  but  they  had  not 
time  to  gather  the  slightest  idea  of  the  cause  of 
their  doom  before  they,  the  car  and  signal  tower 
were  tossed  high  in  the  air,  to  disappear  forever. 
Then  the  engine  leaped  forward  like  a  thing  of 
life,  and  speeded  down  the  valley.  But  fast  as  it 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  233 

went,  the  flood  gained  upon  it.  In  a  few  moments 
the  shrieking  locomotive  whizzed  around  a  curve, 
and  they  were  in  sight  of  a  bridge.  Horror  upon 
horrors !  ahead  of  them  was  a  freight  train,  with 
the  rear  end  almost  on  the  bridge,  and  to  get 
across  was  simply  impossible.  Engineer  Bennett 
then  reversed  the  lever,  and  succeeded  in  check- 
ing the  engine  as  they  glided  across  the  bridge. 
Then  the  men  jumped  and  ran  for  their  lives  up 
the  hillside.  The  bridge  and  the  tender  of  the 
engine  they  had  been  on  were  swept  away  like  a 
bundle  of  matches. 

A  young  man  who  was  a  passenger  on  the 
Deny  express  furnishes  an  interesting  account  of 
his  experiences.  "When  we  reached  Deny,"  he 
said,  "  our  train  was  boarded  by  a  relief  commit- 
tee, and  no  sooner  was  it  ascertained  that  we  were 
going  on  to  Sang  Hollow  than  the  contributions 
of  provisions  and  supplies  of  every  kind  were 
piled  on  board,  filling  an  entire  car.  On  reaching 
Sang  Hollow  the  scene  that  presented  itself  to  us 
was  heart-rending.  The  road  was  lined  with 
homeless  people,  some  with  a  trunk  or  solitary 
chair,  the  only  thing  saved  from  their  household 
goods,  and  all  wearing  an  aspect  of  the  most  hope- 
less misery.  Men  were  at  work  transferring  from 
a  freight  car  a  pile  of  corpses  at  least  sixty  in 
number,  and  here  and  there  a  ghastly  something 
under  a  covering  showed  where  the  body  of  some 


234  THE  J°HNSTO  WX  FL  OOD. 

victim  of  the  flood  lay  awaiting  identification  or 
burial  in  a  nameless  grave.  Busy  workers  were 
engaged  in  clearing  away  the  piles  of  driftwood 
and  scattered  articles  of  household  use  which 
cumbered  the  tracks  and  the  roads.  These  piles 
told  their  own  mournful  story.  There  were  beds, 
bureaus,  mattresses,  chairs,  tables,  pictures,  dead 
horses  and  mules,  overcoats,  remnants  of  dresses 
sticking  on  the  branches  of  trees,  and  a  thousand 
other  odd  pieces  of  flotsam  and  jetsam  from  ruined 
homes.  I  saw  a  man  get  off  the  train  and  pick  up 
an  insurance  policy  for  $30,000.  Another  took 
away  as  relics  a  baby's  chair  and  a  confirmation 
card  in  a  battered  frame.  On  the  banks  of  the 
Little  Conemaugh  creek  people  were  delving  in 
the  driftwood,  which  was  piled  to  a  depth  of  six  or 
seven  feet,  unearthing  and  carrying  away  whatever 
could  be  turned  to  account.  Under  those  piles,  it 
is  thought,  numbers  of  bodies  are  buried,  not  to 
be  recovered  except  by  the  labor  of  many  days. 
A  woman  and  a  little  girl  were  brought  from  Johns- 
town by  some  means  which  I  could  not  ascertain. 
The  woman  was  in  confinement,  and  was  carried 
on  a  lounge,  her  sole  remaining  piece  of  property. 
She  was  taken  to  Latrobe  for  hospital  treatment 
I  cannot  understand  how  it  is  that  people  are 
unable  to  make  their  way  from  Sang  Hollow  to 
Johnstown.  The  distance  is  short,  and  it  should 
certainly  be  a  comparatively  easy  task  to  get  over 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  237 

it  on  foot  or  horseback.  However,  there  seems  to 
be  some  insuperable  obstacle.  All  those  who 
made  the  trip  on  the  train  with  me  in  order  to 
obtain  tidings  of  their  friends  in  Johnstown,  were 
forced  to  return  as  I  did. 

"The  railroad  is  in  a  terrible  condition.  The 
day  express  and  the  limited,  which  left  Pittsburg 
on  Friday  morning,  are  lying  between  Johnstown 
and  Conemaugh  on  the  east,  having  been  cut  off 
by  the  flood.  Linemen  were  sent  down  from  our 
train  at  every  station  to  repair  the  telegraph  wires 
which  are  damaged.  Tremendous  efforts  are  be- 
ing exerted  to  repair  the  injury  sustained  by  the 
railroad,  and  it  is  only  a  question  of  a  couple  of 
days  until  through  communication  is  reestablished. 
Our  homeward  trip  was  marked  by  a  succession 
of  sad  spectacles.  At  Blairsville  intersection  two 
little  girls  lay  dead,  and  in  a  house  taken  from  the 
river  was  the  body  of  a  woman.  Some  idea  of 
the  force  of  the  flood  may  be  had  from  the  state- 
ment that  freight  cars,  both  loaded  and  empty, 
had  been  lifted  bodily  from  the  track,  and  carried 
a  distance  of  several  blocks,  and  deposited  in  a 
graveyard  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  where  they 
were  lying  in  a  mass  mixed  up  with  tombstones 
and  monuments." 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Where  the  carcass  is,  there  will  the  vultures  be 
gathered  together.  It  is  humiliating  to  human 
nature  to  record  it,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that 
amid  all  the  suffering  and  sacrifice,  and  heroism 
and  generosity  that  was  displayed  in  this  awful 
time,  there  arose  some  of  the  basest  passions  of 
unbridled  vice.  The  lust  of  gain  led  many  skulk- 
ing wretches  to  rob  and  despoil,  and  even  to 
mutilate  the  bodies  of  the  dead.  Pockets  were 
searched.  Jewels  were  stolen.  Finger-rings  and 
ear-rings  were  torn  away,  the  knife  often  being 
used  upon  the  poor,  dead  clay  to  facilitate  the 
'spoliation.  Against  this  savagery  the  better  ele- 
ments of  the  populace  sternly  revolted.  For 
the  time  there  was  no  organized  government. 
But  outraged  and  indignant  humanity  soon  formu- 
lates its  own  code  of  laws.  Pistol  and  rope  and 
bludgeon,  in  the  hand  of  honesty,  did  effective 
work.  The  reports  of  summary  lynchings  that 
at  first  were  spread  abroad  were  doubtless  exag- 
gerated, but  they  had  a  stern  foundation  of  truth  ; 

and  they  had  abundant  provocation. 
238 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.          239 

Writing  on  that  tragic  Sunday,  one  correspond- 
ent says :  "  The  way  of  the  transgressor  in  the 
desolated  valley  of  the  Conemaugh  is  hard  indeed. 
Each  hour  reveals  some  new  and  horrible  story 
of  suffering  and  outrage,  and  every  succeeding 
hour  brings  news  of  swift  and  merited  punish- 
ment meted  out  to  the  fiends  who  have  dared  to 
desecrate  the  stiff  and  mangled  bodies  in  the  city 
of  the  dead,  and  torture  the  already  half-crazed 
victims  of  the  crudest  of  modern  catastrophes. 
Last  night  a  party  of  thirteen  Hungarians  were 
noticed  stealthily  picking  their  way  along  the 
banks  of  the  Conemaugh  toward  Sang  Hollow. 
Suspicious  of  their  purpose,  several  farmers 
armed  themselves  and  started  in  pursuit.  Soon 
their  most  horrible  fears  were  realized.  The  Hun- 
garians were  out  for  plunder.  They  came  upon 
the  dead  and  mangled  body  of  a  woman,  lying 
upon  the  shore,  upon  whose  person  there  were 
a  number  of  trinkets  of  jewelry  and  two  diamond 
rings.  In  their  eagerness  to  secure  the  plunder, 
the  Hungarians  got  into  a  squabble,  during  which 
one  of  the  number  severed  the  finger  upon  which 
were  the  rings,  and  started  on  a  run  with  his 
fearful  prize.  The  revolting  nature  of  the  deed 
so  wrought  upon  the  pursuing  farmers,  who  by 
this  time  were  close  at  hand,  that  they  gave  imme- 
diate chase.  Some  of  the  Hungarians  showed 
fight,  but,  being  outnumbered,  were  compelled 


2  4O  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  0  OD. 

to  flee  for  their  lives.  Nine  of  the  brutes  escaped, 
but  four  were  literally  driven  into  the  surging 
river  and  to  their  death.  The  thief  who  took  the 
rings  was  among  the  number  of  the  involuntary 
suicides." 

At  8.30  o'clock  this  morning  an  old  railroader, 
who  had  walked  from  Sang  Hollow,  stepped  up  to 
a  number  of  men  who  were  on  the  platform  sta- 
tion at  Curranville,  and  said  : — 

"  Gentlemen,  had  I  a  shot-gun  with  me  half  an 
hour  ago,  I  would  now  be  a  murderer,  yet  with  no 
fear  of  ever  having  to  suffer  for  my  crime.  Two 
miles  below  here  I  watched  three  men  going  along 
the  banks  stealing  the  jewels  from  the  bodies  of 
the  dead  wives  and  daughters  of  men  who  have 
been  robbed  of  all  they  hold  dear  on  earth." 

He  had  no  sooner  finished  the  last  sentence 
than  five  burly  men,  with  looks  of  terrible  determi- 
nation written  on  their  faces,  were  on  their  way  to 
the  scene  of  plunder,  one  with  a  coil  of  rope  over 
his  shoulder  and  another  with  a  revolver  in  his 
hand.  In  twenty  minutes,  so  it  is  stated,  they  had 
overtaken  two  of  their  victims,  who  were  then  in 
the  act  of  cutting  pieces  from  the  ears  and  fingers 
from  the  hands  of  the  bodies  of  two  dead  women. 
With  revolver  leveled  at  the  scoundrels,  the 
leader  of  the  posse  shouted : — 

"Throw  up  your  hands,  or  I'll  blow  your  heads 
off!" 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD.  2 4 1 

With  blanched  faces  and  trembling  forms,  they 
obeyed  the  order  and  begged  for  mercy.  They 
were  searched,  and,  as  their  pockets  were  emptied 
of  their  ghastly  finds,  the  indignation  of  the  crowd 
intensified,  and  when  a  bloody  finger  of  an  infant 
encircled  with  two  tiny  gold  rings  was  found 
among  the  plunder  in  the  leader's  pocket,  a  cry 
went  up,  "Lynch  them  !  Lynch  them  !"  Without 
a  moment's  delay  ropes  were  thrown  around  their 
necks  and  they  were  dangling  to  the  limbs  of  a 
tree,  in  the  branches  of  which  an  hour  before 
were  entangled  the  bodies  of  a  dead  father  and 
son.  After  half  an  hour  the  ropes  were  cut  and 
the  bodies  lowered  and  carried  to  a  pile  of  rocks 
in  the  forest  on  the  hill  above.  It  is  hinted  that 
an  Allegheny  county  official  was  one  of  the  most 
prominent  in  this  justifiable  homicide. 

One  miserable  wretch  who  was  caught  in  the 
act  of  mutilating  a  body  was  chased  by  a  crowd 
of  citizens,  and  when  captured  was  promptly  strung 
up  to  a  telegraph  pole.  A  company  of  officers 
rescued  him  before  he  was  dead,  much  to  the  dis- 
gust of  many  reputable  people,  whose  feelings  had 
been  outraged  by  the  treatment  of  their  deceased 
relations.  Shortly  after  midnight  an  attempt  was 
made  to  rob  the  First  National  Bank,  which,  with 
the  exception  of  the  vaults,  had  been  destroyed. 
The  plunderers  were  discovered  by  the  citizens' 
patrol,  which  had  been  established  during  the 


242  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

night,  and  a  lively  chase  ensued.  A  number  of 
the  thieves — six,  it  is  said — were  shot.  It  is  not 
known  whether  any  were  killed  or  not,  as  their 
bodies  would  have  been  washed  away  almost  im- 
mediately if  such  had  been  the  case. 

A  number  of  Hungarians  collected  about  a 
number  of  bodies  at  Cambria  which  had  been 
washed  up,  and  began  rifling  the  trunks.  After 
they  had  secured  all  the  contents  they  turned  their 
attention  to  the  dead. 

The  ghastly  spectacle  presented  by  the  distorted 
features  of  those  who  had  lost  their  lives  during 
the  flood  had  no  influence  upon  the  ghouls,  who 
acted  more  like  wild  beasts  than  human  beings. 
They  took  every  article  from  the  clothing  on  the 
dead  bodies,  not  leaving  anything  of  value  or  any- 
thing that  would  serve  to  identify  the  remains. 

After  the  miscreants  had  removed  all  their 
plunder  to  dry  ground  a  dispute  arose  over  a 
division  of  the  spoils.  A  pitched  battle  followed, 
and  for  a  time  the  situation  was  alarming.  Knives 
and  clubs  were  used  freely.  As  a  result  several 
of  the  combatants  were  seriously  wounded  and 
left  on  the  ground,  their  fellow-countrymen  not 
making  any  attempt  to  remove  them  from  the 
field  of  strife. 

A  Hungarian  was  caught  in  the  act  of  cutting 
off  a  dead  woman's  finger,  on  which  was  a  costly 
ring.  The  infuriated  spectators  raised  an  outciy 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  243 

and  the  fiend  fled.  He  was  hotly  pursued,  and 
after  a  half-hour's  hard  chase,  was  captured  and 
hanged  to  a  telegraph  pole,  but  was  cut  down  and 
resuscitated  by  officers.  Liquor  emboldened  the 
ghouls,  and  Pittsburg  was  telegraphed  for  help, 
and  the  i8th  and  I4th  Regiments,  Battery  B  and 
the  Washington  Infantry  were  at  once  called  out 
for  duty,  members  being  apprised  by  posters  in 
the  newspaper  windows. 

One  correspondent  wrote  :  "  The  number  of 
drunken  men  is  remarkable.  Whiskey  seems 
marvelously  plenty.  Men  are  actually  carrying 
it  around  in  pails.  Barrels  of  the  stuff  are  con- 
stantly located  among  the  drifts,  and  men  are  scram- 
bling over  each  other  and  fighting  like  wild  beasts 
in  their  mad  search  for  it.  At  the  cemetery, 
at  the  upper  end  of  town,  I  saw  a  sight  that 
rivals  the  Inferno.  A  number  of  ghouls  had 
found  a  lot  of  fine  groceries,  among  them  a  barrel 
of  brandy,  with  which  they  were  fairly  stuffing 
themselves.  One  huge  fellow  was  standing  on 
the  strings  of  an  upright  piano  singing  a  profane 
song,  every  little  while  breaking  into  a  wild  dance. 
A  half-dozen  others  were  engaged  in  a  hand-to- 
hand  fight  over  the  possession  of  some  treasure 
stolen  from  a  ruined  house,  and  the  crowd  around 
the  barrel  were  yelling  like  wild  men." 

These  reports  were  largely  discredited  and 
denied  by  later  and  probably  more  trustworthy 


244  THE  J°IINS  TO  WN  PL  O  OD. 

authorities,  but  there  was  doubtless  a  considerable 
residue  of  truth  in  them. 

There  were  so  many  contradictory  stories  about 
these  horrible  doings  that  our  painstaking  cor- 
respondent put  to  "Chall"  Dick,  the  Deputy 
Sheriff,  this  "leading  question  "  :  "Did  you  shoot 
any  robbers?"  Chall  did  not  make  instant  reply, 
but  finally  looked  up  with  a  peculiar  expression 
on  his  face  and  said : — 

"There  are  some  men  whom  their  friends  will 
never  again  see  alive." 

"Well,  now,  how  many  did  you  shoot?"  was  the 
next  question. 

"Say,"  said  Chall.  "On  Saturday  morning  I 
was  the  first  to  make  my  way  to  Sang  Hollow  to 
see  if  I  could  not  get  some  food  for  people  made 
homeless  by  the  flood.  There  was  a  car-load  of 
provisions  there,  but  the  vandals  were  on  hand. 
They  broke  into  the  car  and,  in  spite  of  my  pro- 
testations, carried  off  box  after  box  of  supplies. 
I  only  got  half  a  wagon  load.  They  were  too 
many  for  me.  I  know  when  I  have  no  show. 
There  was  no  show  there  and  I  got  out. 

"As  I  was  leaving  Sang  Hollow  and  got  up  the 
mountain  road  a  piece,  I  saw  two  Hungarians  and 
one  woman  engaged  in  cutting  the  fingers  off  of 
corpses  to  get  some  rings.  Well,  I  got  off  that 
team  and — well,  there  are  three  people  who  were 
not  drowned  and  who  are  not  alive." 


ThE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  245 

"  Where  are  the  bodies  ?" 

"  Ain't  the  river  handy  there  ?  I  went  down  to 
Sang  Hollow  on  Sunday,  but  I  went  fixed  for 
trouble  that  time.  When  I  got  into  the  hollow 
the  officers  had  in  tow  a  man  who  claimed  he  was 
arrested  because  he  had  bummed  it  on  the  freight 
train.  A  large  crowd  of  men  were  trying  to  res- 
cue the  fellow.  I  rode  into  that  crowd  and  scat- 
tered it.  I  got  between  the  crowd  and  officers, 
who  succeeded  in  getting  their  man  in  here.  The 
fellow  had  been  robbing  the  dead  and  had  a  lot  of 
jewelry  on  his  person.  I  see  by  the  papers  that 
Consul  Max  Schamberg,  of  Pittsburg,  asserts  that 
the  Huns  are  a  law-abiding  race,  and  that  when 
they  were  accused  of  robbing  the  dead  they  were 
simply  engaged  in  trying  to  identify  some  of  their 
friends.  Consul  Schamberg  does  not  know  what 
he  is  talking  about.  I  know  better,  for  I  saw  them 
engaged  in  robbing  the  dead. 

"  Those  I  caught  at  it  will  never  do  the  like 
again.  Why,  I  saw  them  let  go  of  their  friends  in 
the  water  to  catch  a  bedstead  with  a  mattress  on 
it.  That's  the  sort  of  law-abiding  citizens  the 
Huns  are." 

Down  the  Cambria  road,  past  which  the  dead 
of  the  river  Conemaugh  swept  into  Nineveh  in 
awful  numbers,  was  witnessed  a  wretched  scene 
— that  of  a  young  officer  of  the  National  Guard 
in  full  uniform,  and  a  poor  deputy-sheriff,  who  had 


246          THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

lost  home,  wife,  children  and  all,  clinched  like 
madmen  and  struggling  for  the  former's  revolver. 
If  the  officer  of  the  Guard  had  won,  there  might 
have  been  a  tragedy,  for  he  was  drunk.  The 
homeless  deputy- sheriff,  with  his  wife  and  babies 
swept  to  death  past  the  place  where  they  strug- 
gled, was  sober  and  in  the  right. 

The  officer  was  a  first  lieutenant.  His  company 
came  with  that  regiment  into  this  valley  of  distress 
to  protect  survivors  from  ruffianism  and  maintain 
the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  State.  The  man  with 
whom  he  fought  for  the  weapon  was  almost  crazy 
in  his  own  woe,  but  singularly  cool  and  self-pos- 
sessed regarding  the  safety  of  those  left  living. 

It  was  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  a  Phil- 
adelphia Press  correspondent  noticed  on  the  Cam- 
bria road  the  young  officer  with  his  long  military 
coat  cut  open,  leaning  heavily  for  support  upon 
two  privates.  He  was  crying  in  a  maudlin  way, 
"  You  just  take  me  to  a  place  and  I'll  drink  soft 
stuff."  They  entreated  him  to  return  at  once  to 
the  regimental  headquarters,  even  begged  him, 
but  he  cast  them  aside  and  went  staggering  down 
the  road  to  the  line,  where  he  met  the  grave-faced 
deputy  face  to  face.  The  latter  looked  in  the 
white  of  his  eyes  and  said:  "You  can't  pass  here, 
sir." 

"  Can't  pass  here  ?"  he  cried,  waving  his  arms. 
"You  challenge  an  officer?  Stand  aside  !" 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.          247 

"  You  can't  pass  here  !"  this  time  quietly,  but 
firmly  ;  "  not  while  you're  drunk." 

"  Stand  aside  !"  yelled  the  lieutenant.  "  Do  you 
know  who  I  am  ?  You  talk  to  an  officer  of  the 
National  Guard." 

"Yes;  and  listen,"  said  the  man  in  front  of 
him  so  impatiently  that  it  hushed  his  antagonist's 
tirade.  "  I  talk  to  an  '  officer '  of  the  National 
Guard — I  who  have  lost  my  wife,  my  children  and 
all  in  this  flood  no  man  has  yet  described  ;  we 
who  have  seen  our  dead  with  their  bodies  muti- 
lated and  their  fingers  cut  from  their  hands  by 
dirty  foreigners  for  a  little  gold,  are  not  afraid  to 
talk  for  what  is  right,  even  to  an  officer  of  the 
National  Guard." 

While  he  spoke  another  great,  dark,  stout  man, 
who  looked  as  if  he  had  suffered,  came  up,  and 
upon  taking  in  the  situation  every  vein  in  his  fore- 
head swelled  purple  with  rage. 

"You  dirty  cur,"  he  cried  to  the  officer;  "you 
dirty,  drunken  cur,  if  it  was  not  for  the  sake  of 
peace  I'd  lay  you  out  where  you  stand." 

"  Come  on,"  yelled  the  Lieutenant,  with  an  oath. 

The  big  man  sent  out  a  terrible  blow  that  would 
have  left  the  Lieutenant  senseless  had  not  one  of 
the  privates  dashed  in  between,  receiving  part  of 
it  and  warding  it  off.  The  Lieutenant  got  out  of 
his  military  coat.  The  privates  seized  the  big 
man  and  with  another  correspondent,  who  ran  to 


248  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

the  scene,  held  him  back.  The  Lieutenant  put  his 
hand  to  his  pistol  pocket,  the  deputy  seized  him, 
and  the  struggle  for  the  weapon  began.  For  a 
moment  it  was  fierce  and  desperate,  .then  another 
private  came  to  the  deputy's  assistance.  The 
revolver  was  wrested  from  the  drunken  officer 
and  he  himself  was  pushed  back  panting  to  the 
ground. 

The  deputy  seized  the  military  coat  he  had 
thrown  on  the  ground,  and  with  it  and  the  weapon 
started  to  the  regimental  headquarters.  Then 
the  privates  got  around  him  and  begged  him,  one 
of  them  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  not  to  report  their 
officer,  saying  that  he  was  a  good  man  when  he 
was  sober.  He  studied  a  long  while,  standing  in 
the  road,  while  the  officer  slunk  away  over  the 
hill.  Then  he  threw  the  disgraced  uniform  to 
them,  and  said :  "  Here,  give  them  to  him  ;  and, 
mind  you,  if  he  does  not  go  at  once  to  his  quar- 
ters, I'll  take  him  there,  dead  or  alive." 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

While  yet  the  first  wild  cry  of  anguish  was 
thrilling  among  the  startled  hills  of  the  Cone- 
maugh,  the  great  heart  of  the  nation  answered  it 
with  a  mighty»throb  of  sympathy.  On  Tuesday 
afternoon,  at  Washington,  the  President  called  a 
gathering  of  eminent  citizens  to  devise  measures 
of  relief.  The  meeting  was  held  in  Willard's 
Hall,  on  F  street,  above  Fourteenth,  and  President 
Harrison  made  such  an  eloquent  appeal  for  assist- 
ance that  nearly  $10,000  was  raised  in  the  hour 
and  a  half  that  the  meeting  was  in  session. 

As  presiding  officer  the  Chief  Magistrate  sat  in 
a  big  arm-chair  on  the  stage.  On  his  right  were 
District  Commissioner  Douglass,  Hine  and  Ray- 
mond, and  on  his  left  sat  Postmaster -General 
Wanamaker  and  Private  Secretary  Halford.  In 
the  audience  were  Secretaries  Noble,  Proctor  and 
Tracy,  Attorney -General  Miller,  Congressman 
Randall  and  Senators  and  Representatives  from 
all  parts  of  the  country. 

249 


2  50  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

President  Harrison  called  the  meeting  to  order 
promptly  at  3  o'clock.  A  dead  silence  fell  over 
the  three  hundred  people  as  the  President  stepped 
to  the  front  of  the  platform  and  in  a  clear,  dis- 
tinct voice  appealed  for  aid  for  the  thousands  who 
had  been  bereft  of  their  all  by  the  terrible  calam- 
ity. His  voice  trembled  once  or  twice  as  he  dwelt 
upon  the  scene  of  death  and  desolation,  and  a 
number  of  handkerchiefs  were  called  into  use  at 
his  vivid  portrayal  of  the  disaster. 

Upon  taking  the  chair  the  President  said  : — 
"  Every  one  here  to-day  is  distressingly  con- 
scious of  the  circumstances  which  have  convened 
this  meeting.  It  would  be  impossible  to  state 
more  impressively  than  the  newspapers  have 
already  done  the  distressing  incidents  attending 
the  calamity  which  has  fallen  upon  the  city  of 
Johnstown  and  the  neighboring  hamlets,  and  upon 
a  large  section  of  Pennsylvania  situated  upon  the 
Susquehanna  river.  The  grim  pencil  of  Dore 
would  be  inadequate  to  portray  the  horrors  of  this 
visitation.  In  such  meetings  as  we  have  here  in 
the  national  capital  and  other  like  gatherings  that 
are  taking  place  in  all  the  cities  of  this  land,  we 
have  the  only  rays  of  hope  and  light  in  the  gen- 
eral gloom.  When  such  a  calamitous  visitation 
falls  upon  any  section  of  our  country  we  can  do 
no  more  than  to  put  about  the  dark  picture  the 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD.  2  5  I 

golden   border  of  love  and  charity.     [Applause.]. 
It  is  in  such  fires  as  these  that  the  brotherhood  of 
man  is  welded. 

"  And  where  is  sympathy  and  help  more  appro- 
priate than  here  in  the  national  capital  ?  I  am 
glad  to  say  that  early  this  morning,  from  a  city  not 
long  ago  visited  with  pestilence,  not  long  ago 
itself  appealing  to  the  charitable  people  of  the 
whole  land  for  relief — the  city  of  Jacksonville, 
Fla. — there  came  the  ebb  of  that  tide  of  charity 
which  flowed  toward  it  in  the  time  of  its  need,  in  a 
telegram  from  the  Sanitary  Relief  Association  au- 
thorizing me  to  draw  upon  them  for  $2000  for  the 
relief  of  the  Pennsylvania  sufferers.  [Applause.] 

"  But  this  is  no  time  for  speech.  While  I  talk 
men  and  women  are  suffering  for  the  relief  which 
we  plan  to  give.  One  word  or  two  of  practical 
suggestion,  and  I  will  place  this  meeting  in  your 
hands  to  give  effect  to  your  impatient  benevo- 
lence. I  have  a  despatch  from  the  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania  advising  me  that  communication  has 
just  been  opened  with  Williamsport,  on  a  branch 
of  the  Susquehanna  river,  and  that  the  losses  in 
that  section  have  been  appalling ;  that  thousands 
of  people  there  are  homeless  and  penniless,  and 
that  there  is  an  immediate  call  for  food  to  relieve 
their  necessities.  He  advises  me  that  any  sup- 
plies of  food  that  can  be  hastily  gathered  here 
should  be  sent  via  Harrisburg  to  Williamsport, 


252  THE  JOHNS  TO  W TV  FL  O  OD. 

•  where  they  will  be  distributed.  I  suggest,  there- 
fore, that  a  committee  be  constituted  having  in 
charge  the  speedy  collection  of  articles  of  food. 

"The  occasion  is  such  that  the  bells  might  well 
be  rung  through  your  streets  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  thoughtless  to  this  great  exigency — in  order 
that  a  train  load  of  provisions  may  be  despatched 
to-night  or  in  the  early  morning  to  this  suffering 
people. 

"  I  suggest,  secondly,  as  many  of  these  people 
have  had  the  entire  furnishings  of  their  houses 
swept  away  and  have  now  only  temporary  shelter, 
that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  collect  such 
articles  of  clothing,  and  especially  bed  clothing, 
as  can  be  spared.  Now  that  the  summer  season 
is  on,  there  can  hardly  be  a  house  in  Washington 
which  cannot  spare  a  blanket  or  a  coverlet. 

"  And,  third,  I  suggest  that  from  the  substantial 
business  men  and  bankers  there  be  appointed  a 
committee  who  shall  collect  money,  for  after  the 
first  exigency  is  past  there  will  be  found  in  those 
communities  very  many  who  have  lost  their  all,  who 
will  need  aid  in  the  construction  of  their  demol- 
ished homes  and  in  furnishing  them  so  that  they 
may  be  again  inhabited. 

"  Need  I  say  in  conclusion  that,  as  a  temporary 
citizen  of  Washington,  it  would  give  me  great  satis- 
faction if  the  national  capital  should  so  generously 
respond  to  this  call  of  our  distressed  fellow  citi- 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  255 

zens  as  to  be  conspicuous  among-  the  cities  of  our 
land.  [Applause.]  I  feel  that,  as  I  am  now  calling 
for  contributions,  I  should  state  that  on  Saturday, 
when  first  apprised  of  the  disaster  at  Johnstown, 
I  telegraphed  a  subscription  to  the  Mayor  of  that 
city.  I  do  not  like  to  speak  of  anything  so  per- 
sonal as  this,  but  I  felt  it  due  to  myself  and  to  you 
that  I  should  say  so  much  as  this." 

The  vice  presidents  elected  included  all  the 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  Chief  Justices  Fuller, 
Bingham  and  Richardson,  M.  G.  Emery,  J.  A.  J. 
Cresswell,  Dr.  E.  B.  Clark,  of  the  Bank  of  the 
Republic ;  C.  L.  Glover,  of  the  Riggs  Bank ; 
Cashier  James,  of  the  Bank  of  Washington;  B.  H. 
Warner,  Ex-Commissioners  Webb  and  Wheatley, 
Jesse  B.  Wilson,  Ex-Minister  Foster  and  J.  W. 
Thompson.  The  secretaries  were  S.  H.  Kauf- 
mann,  Beriah  Wilkins,  E.  W.  Murphy  and  Hallett 
Kilbourne  ;  treasurer,  E.  Kurtz  Johnson. 

While  subscriptions  were  being  taken  up,  the 
President  intimated  that  suggestions  would  be  in 
order,  and  a  prompt  and  generous  response  was 
the  result.  The  Adams  Express  Company  volun- 
teered to  transport  all  material  for  the  relief  of  the 
distressed  people  free  of  charge,  and  the  Lament 
Opera  Company  tendered  their  services  for  a 
benefit,  to  be  given  in  aid  of  the  sufferers.  The 
managers  offered  the  use  of  their  theatre  free  of 
charge  for  any  performances.  Numerous  other 

'5 


256  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

offers  of  provisions  and  clothing  were  made  and 
accepted. 

Then  President  Harrison  read  a  number  of  tele- 
grams from  Governor  Beaver,  in  which  he  gave  a 
brief  synopsis  of  the  horrors  of  the  situation  and 
asked  for  the  government  pontoon  bridge. 

"  I  regret  to  say,"  added  the  President,  "  that  the 
entire  length  of  the  pontoon  bridge  is  only  550  feet. 
Governor  Beaver  advises  me  that  the  present  hor- 
rors are  not  alone  to  be  dreaded,  but  he  fears  that 
pestilence  may  come.  I  would  therefore  suggest 
that  disinfectants  be  included  in  the  donations.  I 
think  we  should  concentrate  our  efforts  and  work, 
through  one  channel,  so  that  the  work  may  be  ex- 
peditiously  done.  In  view  of  that  fact  we  should 
have  one  headquarters  and  everything  should  be 
sent  there.  Then  it  could  be  shipped  without 
delay." 

The  use  of  Willard  Hall  was  tendered  and  de- 
cided upon  as  a  central  point.  The  District  Com- 
missioners were  appointed  a  committee  to  receive 
and  forward  the  contributions.  When  the  collec- 
tions had  been  made,  the  amounts  were  read  out 
and  included  sums  ranging  from  $500  to  $i. 

The  President,  in  dismissing  the  meeting,  said  :— 

"  May  I  express  the  hope  that  this  work  will  be 
earnestly  and  thoroughly  pushed,  and  that  every 
man  and  woman  present  will  go  from  this  meet- 
ing to  use  their  influence  in  order  that  these 


7I/E  JOffNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  257 

supplies  of  food  and  clothing  so  much  and  so 
promptly  needed  may  be  secured,  and  that  either 
to-night  or  to-morrow  morning  a  train  well 
freighted  with  relief  may  go  from  Washington." 

In  adjourning  the  meeting,  President  Harrison 
urged  expediency  in  forwarding  the  materials  for 
the  sufferers.  Just  before  adjournment  a  resolu- 
tion was  read,  thanking  the  President  for  the 
interest  he  had  taken  in  the  matter.  President 
Harrison  stepped  to  the  front  of  the  platform 
then,  and  declined  the  resolution  in  a  few  grace- 
ful remarks. 

"  I  appreciate  the  resolution,"  he  said,  "  but  I 
don't  see  why  I  should  be  thanked  any  more  than 
the  others,  and  I  would  prefer  that  the  resolution 
be  withdrawn." 

Pension  Commissioner  Tanner,  on  Monday, 
sent  the  following  telegram  to  the  United  States 
Pension  agent  at  Pittsburg  : — 

"  Make  special  any  current  vouchers  from  the 
towns  in  Pennsylvania  ruined  by  floods  and  pay 
at  once  on  their  receipt.  Where  certificates  have 
been  lost  in  floods  send  permit  to  execute  new 
voucher  without  presenting  certificate  to  magis- 
trate. Permits  signed  in  blank  forwarded  to-day. 
Make  special  all  original  certificates  of  pensioners 
residing  in  those  towns  and  pay  on  receipt  of 
vouchers,  regardless  of  my  instruction  of  May 
1 3th." 


258  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

The  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  issued  the  fol- 
lowing : — 

"  COMMONWEALTH  OF  PENNSYLVANIA, 

"  EXECUTIVE  CHAMBER, 
"  HARRISBURG,  PA.,  June  3d,  1889. 
"  To  the  People  of  the  United  States  : — 

"The  Executive  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
sylvania has  refrained  hitherto  from  making  any 
appeal  to  the  people  for  their  benefactions,  in 
order  that  he  might  receive  definite  and  reliable 
information  from  the  centres  of  disaster  during 
the  late  floods,  which  have  been  unprecedented  in 
the  history  of  the  State  or  nation.  Communica- 
tion by  wire  has  been  established  with  Johnstown 
to-day.  The  civil  authorities  are  in  control,  the 
Adjutant  General  of  the  State  cooperating  with 
them  ;  order  has  been  restored  and  is  likely  to 
continue.  Newspaper  reports  as  to  the  loss  of 
life  and  property  have  not  been  exaggerated. 

"The  valley  of  the  Conemaugh,  which  is  peculiar, 
has  been  swept  from  one  end  to  the  other  as  with 
the  besom  of  destruction.  It  contained  a  popula- 
tion of  forty  thousand  to  fifty  thousand  people, 
living  for  the  most  part  along  the  banks  of  a 
small  river  confined  within  narrow  limits.  The 
most  conservative  estimates  place  the  loss  of  life 
at  5000  human  beings,  and  of  property  at  twenty- 
five  millions.  Whole  towns  have  been  utterly 
destroyed.  Not  a  vestige  remains.  In  the  more 


THE  JO//JVS TO IV N  FLOOD.  259 

substantial  towns  the  better  buildings,  to  a  certain 
extent,  remain,  but  in  a  damaged  condition.  Those 
who  are  least  able  to  bear  it  have  suffered  the  loss 
of  everything. 

"The  most  pressing  needs,  so  far  as  food  is 
concerned,  have  been  supplied.  Shoes  and 
clothing  of  all  sorts  for  men,  women  and  children 
are  greatly  needed.  Money  is  also  urgently  re- 
quired to  remove  the  debris,  bury  the  dead  and 
care  temporarily  for  the  widows  and  orphans  and 
for  the  homeless  generally.  Other  localities  have 
suffered  to  some  extent  in  the  same  way,  but  not 
in  the  same  degree. 

"Late  advices  seem  to  indicate  that  there  is 
great  loss  of  life  and  destruction  of  property  along 
the  west  branch  of  the  Susquehanna  and  in  locali- 
ties from  which  we  can  get  no  definite  informa- 
tion. What  does  come,  however,  is  of  the  most 
appalling  character,  and  it  is  expected  that  the 
details  will  add  new  horrors  to  the  situation. 

"The  responses  from  within  and  without  the 
State  have  been  most  generous  and  cheering. 
North  and  South,  East  and  West,  from  the  United 
States  and  from  England,  there  comes  the  same 
hearty,  generous  response  of  sympathy  and  help. 
The  President,  Governors  of  States,  Mayors  of 
cities,  and  individuals  and  communities,  private 
and  municipal  corporations,  seem  to  vie  with  each 
other  in  their  expressions  of  sympathy  and  in  their 


2 6O  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

contributions  of  substantial  aid.  But,  gratifying 
as  these  responses  are,  there  is  no  danger  of  their 
exceeding  the  necessities  of  the  situation. 

"A  careful  organization  has  been  made  upon 
the  ground  for  the  distribution  of  whatever  assist- 
ance is  furnished,  in  kind.  The  Adjutant  General 
of  the  State  is  there  as  the  representative  of  the 
State  authorities,  and  is  giving  personal  attention, 
in  connection  with  the  Chief  Burgess  of  Johns- 
town and  a  committee  of  relief,  to  the  distribution 
of  the  help  which  is  furnished. 

"  Funds  contributed  in  aid  of  the  sufferers  can 
be  deposited  with  Drexel  &  Co.,  Philadelphia  ; 
Jacob  C.  Bomberger,  banker,  Harrisburg,  or  Wil- 
liam R.  Thompson  &  Co.,  bankers,  Pittsburg. 
All  money  contributed  will  be  used  carefully  and 
judiciously.  Present  wants  are  fairly  met. 

"A  large  force  will  be  employed  at  once  to 
remove  the  debris  and  bury  the  dead,  so  as  to 
avoid  disease  and  epidemic. 

"  The  people  of  the  Commonwealth  and  others 
whose  unselfish  generosity  is  hereby  heartily 
appreciated  and  acknowledged  may  be  assured 
that  their  contributions  will  be  made  to  brine:  their 

o 

benefactions  to  the  immediate  and  direct  relief  of 
those  for  whose  benefit  they  are  intended. 

"  JAMES  A.  BEAVER. 

"  By  the  Governor,  CHARLES  W.  STONE,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Commonwealth." 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD.  2 6 1 

Governor  Hill,  of  New  York,  also  issued  the 
following-  proclamation  : — 

STATE  OF  NEW  YORK. 

"A  disaster  unparalleled  of  its  kind  in  the  his- 
tory of  our  nation  has  overtaken  the  inhabitants  of 
the  city  of  Johnstown  and  surrounding  towns  in  our 
sister  State  of  Pennsylvania.  In  consequence  of  a 
mighty  flood  thousands  of  lives  have  been  lost,  and 
thousands  of  those  saved  from  the  waters  are  home- 
less and  in  want.  The  sympathy  of  all  the  people  of 
the  State  of  New  York  is,  profoundly  aroused  in 
behalf  of  the  unfortunate  sufferers  by  the  calamity. 
The  State,  in  its  capacity  as  such,  has  no  power  to 
aid,  but  the  generous-hearted  citizens  of  our  State 
are  always  ready  and  willing  to  afford  relief  to  those 
of  their  fellow  countrymen  who  are  in  need,  when- 
ever just  appeal  has  been  made. 

"Therefore,  as  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  I  hereby  suggest  that  in  each  city  and  town 
in  the  State  relief  committees  be  formed,  contribu- 
tions be  solicited  and  such  other  appropriate  action 
be  taken  as  will  promptly  afford  material  assistance 
and  necessary  aid  to  the  unfortunate.  Let  the 
citizens  of  every  portion  of  the  State  vie  with  each 
other  in  helping  with  liberal  hand  this  worthy  and 
urgent  cause. 

"Done  at  the  Capitol,  this  third  day  of  June,  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  eighty-nine."  DAVID  B.  HILL. 

By  the  Governor,  WILLIAM  G.  RICE,  Sec. 


262  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

Nor  were  Americans  in  foreign  lands  less 
prompt  with  their  offerings.  On  Wednesday,  in 
Paris,  a  meeting  of  Americans  was  held  at  the 
United  States  Legation,  on  a  call  in  the  morning 
papers  by  Whitelavv  Reid,  the  United  States  Min- 
ister, to  express  the  sympathy  of  the  Americans 
in  Paris  with  the  sufferers  by  the  Johnstown  calam- 
ity. In  spite  of  the  short  notice  the  rooms  of  the 
Legation  were  packed,  and  many  went  away 
unable  to  gain  admittance.  Mr.  Rejd  was  called 
to  the  chair,  and  Mr.  Ernest  Lambert  was  ap- 
pointed secretary.  The  following  resolutions 
were  offered  by  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  and  sec- 
onded by  Mr.  James  N.  Otis  : — 

Resolved,  That  we  send  across  the  Atlantic  to 
our  brethren,  overwhelmed  by  the  appalling  dis- 
aster at  Johnstown,  our  most  profound  and  heart- 
felt sympathy.  Over  their  lost  ones  we  mourn 
with  them,  and  in  every  pang  of  all  their  misery 
we  have  our  part. 

Resolved,  That  as  American  citizens  we  con- 
gratulate them  upon  and  thank  them  for  the 
numerous  acts  of  noble  heroism  displayed  under 
circumstances  calculated  to  unnerve  the  bravest. 
Especially  do  we  honor  and  admire  them  for  the 
capacity  shown  for  local  self-government,  upon 
which  the  stability  of  republican  institutions  de- 
pends, the  military  organizations  sent  from  distant 
points  to  preserve  order  during  the  chaos  that 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.          263 

supervened  having  been  returned  to  their  homes 
as  no  longer  required  within  forty-eight  hours  of 
the  calamity.  In  these  few  hours  the  civil  power 
recreated  and  asserted  itself  and  resumed  sway 
without  the  aid  of  counsel  from  distant  authorities, 
but  solely  by  and  from  the  inherent  power  which 
remains  in  the  people  of  Johnstown  themselves. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  meeting  be 
cordially  tendered  to  Mr.  Reid  for  his  prompt  and 
appropriate  action  in  this  matter,  and  for  services 
as  chairman  of  this  meeting. 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be 
forwarded  at  once  by  telegraph  to  the  Mayors  of 
Johnstown,  Pittsburg  and  Philadelphia. 

Brief  and  touching  speeches  were  made  by 
General  Lawton,  late  United  States  Minister  to 
Austria;  the  Hon.  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  General 
Meredith  Read  and  others. 

The  resolutions  were  then  unanimously  adopted, 
and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  receive  sub- 
scriptions. About  40,000  francs  were  subscribed 
on  tha  spot.  The  American  bankers  all  agreed  to 
open  subscriptions  the  next  day  at  their  banking 
houses.  "  Buffalo  Bill "  subscribed  the  entire 
receipts  of  one  entertainment,  to  be  given  under 
the  auspices  of  the  committee. 

Besides  those  already  named,  there  were  pres- 
ent Benjamin  Brewster,  Louis  von  Hoffman, 
Charles  A.  Pratt,  ex- Congressman  Lloyd  Bryce, 


2 64  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

Clarence  Dinsmore,  Edward  Tuck,  Professor 
Chanler,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Stoddard  and  others  from 
New  York ;  Colonel  Otis  Ritchie,  of  Boston ; 
General  Franklin  and  Assistant  Commissioner 
Tuck  ;  George  W.  Allen,  of  St.  Louis  ;  Consul- 
General  Rathbone,  and  a  large  number  of  the 
American  colony  in  Paris.  It  was  the  largest  and 
most  earnest  meeting  of  Americans  held  in  Paris 
for  many  years. 

The  Municipal  Council  of  Paris  gave  5000 
francs  to  the  victims  of  the  floods. 

In  London,  the  American  Minister,  Mr.  Robert 
T.  Lincoln,  received  from  his  countrymen  there 
large  contributions.  Mr.  Marshall  R.  Wilder,  the 
comedian,  gave  an  evening  of  recitations  to  swell 
the  fund.  Generous  contributions  also  came  from 
Berlin  and  other  European  cities. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Spontaneously  as  the  floods  descended  upon 
the  fated  valley,  the  American  people  sprang  to 
the  relief  of  the  survivors.  In  every  city  and 
town  subscription  lists  were  opened,  and  clothing 
and  bedding  and  food  were  forwarded  by  the 
train-load.  Managers  gave  theatrical  perform- 
ances and  baseball  clubs  gave  benefit  games  to 
swell  the  fund.  The  Mayors  of  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia and  other  large  cities  took  personal  charge 
of  the  collection  and  forwarding  of  funds  and 
goods.  In  New  York  a  meeting  of  representative 
citizens  was  called  by  the  Mayor,  and  a  committee 
formed,  with  General  Sherman  as  chairman,  and 
the  presidents  of  the  Produce  Exchange  and  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  among  the  vice-chairmen, 
while  the  president  of  the  Stock  Exchange  acted 
as  treasurer.  The  following  appeal  was  issued  :— 

"  To  the  People  of  the  City  of  New  York  : — 

"The  undersigned  have  been  appointed  a  com- 
mittee by  a  meeting  held  at  the  call  of  the  Mayor 

of  the  city  10  devise  means  for  the  succor  and  re- 

265 


266  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL OOD. 

lief  of  the  sufferers  in  the  Conemaugh  Valley.  A 
disaster  of  unparalleled  magnitude  has  overtaken 
the  people  of  that  valley  and  elsewhere.  With- 
out warning,  their  homes  have  been  swept  away 
by  an  unexpected  and  unprecedented  flood.  The 
daily  journals  of  this  cily  contain  long  lists  of  the 
dead,  and  the  number  of  those  who  perished  is 
still  unknown.  The  survivors  are  destitute.  They 
are  houseless  and  homeless,  with  scant  food  and 
no  shelter,  and  the  destructive  waters  have  not 
yet  subsided. 

"  In  this  emergency  their  cry  for  help  reaches 
us.  There  has  never  been  an  occasion  in  our 
history  that  the  appeal  to  our  citizens  to  be  gener- 
ous in  their  contributions  was  of  greater  moment 
than  the  present.  That  generosity  which  has 
distinguished  them  above  the  citizens  of  every 
other  city,  and  which  was  extended  to  the  relief 
of  the  famishing  in  Ireland,  to  the  stricken  city  of 
Charleston,  to  the  plague-smitten  city  of  Jackson- 
ville, and  so  on  through  the  record  of  every  event 
where  man  was  compelled  to  appeal  to  man,  will 
not  be  lacking  in  this  most  recent  calamity.  Gen- 
erous contributions  have  already  reached  the 
committee.  Let  the  amount  increase  until  they 
swell  into  a  mighty  river  of  benevolence. 

"The  committee  earnestly  request,  as  the  want 
is  pressing  and  succor  to  be  effectual  must  be 
speedy,  that  all  contributions  be  sent  at  as  early  a 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  267 

date  as  possible.  Their  receipt  will  be  promptly 
acknowledged  and  they  will  be  applied,  through 
responsible  channels,  to  the  relief  of  the  destitute 
and  suffering." 

All  the  exchanges,  newspapers  and  other  pub- 
lic agencies  took  up  the  work,  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars  rolled  in  every  day.  Special 
collections  were  taken  in  the  churches,  and  large 
sums  were  thus  realized. 

In  Philadelphia  the  work  of  relief  was  entered 
into  in  a  similar  manner,  with  equally  gratifying 
results.  By  Tuesday  evening  the  various  funds 
established  in  that  city  for  the  sufferers  had  reached 
a  total  of  $360,000.  In  addition  over  100,000 
packages  of  provisions,  clothing,  etc.,  making 
fully  twenty  car-loads,  had  been  started  on  the 
way.  The  leading  business  houses  tendered  the 
service  of  their  delivery  wagons  for  the  collection 
of  goods,  and  some  of  them  placed  donation 
boxes  at  their  establishments,  yielding  handsome 
returns. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  the  following 
resolution  was  adopted  by  a  unanimous  vote: — 

"  Resolved,  That  in  addition  to  the  $5000  sub- 
scribed by  this  company  at  Pittsburg,  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company  hereby  makes  an 
extra  donation  of  $25,000  for  the  assistance  of  the 
sufferers  by  the  recent  floods  at  Johnstown  and 


268  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD. 

other  points  upon  the  lines  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  and  the  other  affiliated  roads,  the  con- 
tribution to  be  expended  under  the  direction  of 
the  Committee  on  Finance." 

At  the  same  time  the  members  of  the  Board 
and  executive  -officers  added  a  contribution,  as 
individuals,  of  $5000. 

The  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany subscribed  $10,000  to  the  Citizens'  Fund. 

In  pursuance  of  a  call  issued  by  the  Citizens' 
Permanent  Relief  Association,  a  largely-attended 
meeting  was  held  at  the  Mayor's  office.  Drexel 
&  Co.,  the  treasurers  of  the  fund,  started  the  fund 
with  a  contribution  of  $10,000.  Several  subscrip- 
tions of  $1000  each  were  announced.  Many 
subscriptions  were  sent  direct  to  Drexel  &  Co.'s 
banking  house,  including  $5000  from  the  Phila- 
delphia brewers,  $5000  from  the  Baldwin  Loco- 
motive Works  and  other  individual  contributors. 

But  the  great  cities  had  no  monopoly  of  bene- 
factions. How  every  town  in  the  land  responded 
to  the  call  may  be  imagined  from  a  few  items 
clipped  at  random  from  the  daily  papers,  items 
the  like  of  which  for  days  crowded  many  columns 
of  the  public  press  : — 

Bethlehem,  Penn.,  June  j. — The  Bethlehem  Iron 
Company  to-day  contributed  $5000  for  the  relief 
of  the  sufferers. 

Johnstown,  Penn.,  June  j. — Stephen  Collins,  of 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  269 

the  Pittsburg  post-office,  and  several  other  mem- 
bers of  the  Junior  Order  of  United  American 
Mechanics,  were  here  to-day  to  establish  a  relief 
fund.  They  have  informed  the  committees  that 
the  members  of  this  strong  organization  are  ready 
to  do  their  best  for  their  sufferers. 

Buffalo,  June  j. — A  meeting  was  held  at  the 
Mayor's  office  to-day  to  devise  means  for  the  aid 
of  the  flood  sufferers.  The  Mayor  sent  $1000  by 
telegraph  this  afternoon.  A  committee  was 
appointed  to  raise  funds.  The  Merchants'  Ex- 
change also  started  a  relief  fund  this  morning. 
A  relief  train  on  the  Western  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  left  here  for  Pittsburg  to- 
night with  contributions  of  food  and  clothing. 

Albany,  June  j. — The  Morning  Express  to-day 
started  a  subscription  for  the  relief  of  the  suffer- 
ers. A  public  meeting,  presided  over  by  Mayor 
Maher,  was  held  at  noon  to-day,  and  a  number  of 
plans  were  adopted  for  securing  funds.  There  is 
now  on  hand  $1000.  Another  meeting  was  held 
this  evening.  The  offertory  in  the  city  churches 
will  be  devoted  to  the  fund. 

Poughkeepsie,  June  j. — A  general  movement 
was  begun  here  to-day  to  aid  the  sufferers  in  Penn- 
sylvania. Mayor  Rowley  issued  a  proclamation 
and  people  have  been  sending  money  to  The 
Eagle  office  all  day.  Factory  operatives  are  con- 
tributing, clergymen  are  taking  hold  of  the  matter, 


2  7O  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

and  to-night  the  Retail  Dealers'  Association  held  a 
public  meeting  at  the  Court  House  to  appoint 
committees  to  go  about  among  the  merchants  with 
subscription  lists.  Mrs.  Brazier,  proprietress  of  a 
knitting  factory,  sent  off  sixty  dozen  suits  of  under- 
wear to  the  sufferers  to-day. 

Troy,  June  3. — Subscriptions  exceeding  $1500 
for  the  relief  of  the  Pennsylvania  flood  sufferers 
were  received  to-day  by  The  Troy  Press.  The 
Mayor  has  called  a  public  meeting  for  to-morrow. 

Washington,  June  j. — A  subscription  for  the 
relief  of  the  sufferers  by  the  Johnstown  flood  was 
started  at  the  Post-office  Department  to-day  by 
Chief  Clerk  Cooley.  First  Assistant  Postmaster- 
General  Clarkson  headed  the  list  with  $100. 
The  indications  are  that  nearly  $1000  will  be 
raised  in  this  Department.  Postmaster-General 
Wanamaker  had  already  subscribed  $1000  in 
Philadelphia. 

The  Post  has  started  a  subscription  for  the  re- 
lief of  the  Johnstown  sufferers.  It  amounts  at 
present  to  $810.  The  largest  single  contribution 
is  $250  by  Allen  McLane. 

Trenton,  June  j. — In  the  Board  of  Trade  rooms 
to-night  over  $1000  was  subscribed  for  the  benefit 
of  Johnstown  sufferers.  Contributions  made  to- 
day will  swell  the  sum  to  double  that  amount. 
Committees  were  appointed  to  canvass  the  city. 

Chicago,  June  j. — Mayor  Cregier  called  a  pub- 


•THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  273 

He  meeting,  which  was  held  at  the  City  Hall  to-day, 
to  take  measures  for  the  relief  of  the  Johnstown 
sufferers.  John  B.  Drake,  of  the  Grand  Pacific, 
headed  a  subscription  with  $500. 

Hartford,  Conn.,  June  j. — The  House  to-day 
concurred  with  the  Senate  in  passing  the  resolu- 
tion appropriating  $25,000  for  the  flood  sufferers. 

Boston,  June  j. — The  House  this  afternoon  ad- 
mitted a  bill  appropriating  $10,000  for  the  relief 
of  the  sufferers. 

A  citizens'  committee  will  receive  subscriptions. 
It  was  announced  that  $4600  had  already  been 
subscribed.  Dockstader's  Minstrels  will  give  a 
benefit  to-morrow  afternoon  in  aid  of  the  sufferers' 
fund. 

Pittsfield,  Mass.,  June  j>. — A  meeting  was  held 
here  to-night  and  about  $300  was  raised  for  the 
Johnstown  sufferers.  The  town  will  be  canvassed 
to-morrow.  Senator  Dawes  attended  the  meeting, 

o' 

made  an  address  and  contributed  liberally. 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  June  j>. — At  a  meeting  of 
the  Charleston  Cotton  Exchange  to-day  $500  was 
subscribed  for  the  relief  of  the  flood  sufferers. 

Fort  Worth,  Texas,  June 3. — The  Texas  Spring 
Palace  Association  to-night  telegraphed  to  George 
W.  Childs,  of  Philadelphia,  that  to-morrow's  re- 
ceipts at  the  Spring  Palace  will  be  given  to  the 
sufferers  by  the  flood. 

Nashville,   Tenn.,  June  j>. — The  American  to- 
16 


274  7  '11E  J°HNS  7 '°  WN  FL  °  OD- 

clay  started  a  fund  for  the  relief  of  the  Johnstown 
sufferers. 

Utica,  June  4. — Utica  to-day  sent  $2000  to 
Johnstown. 

ItJiaca,  June  4. — Cornell  University  has  col- 
lected $800  for  the  sufferers. 

TT 

Troy,  June  4. — The  Troy  Times  sent  this  after- 
noon $1200  to  the  Mayor  of  Pittsburg.  The  Press 
sent  $1000,  making  $2000  forwarded  by  The  Press. 

Boston,  June  4. — The  House  to-day  amended 
its  bill  of  yesterday  and  appropriated  $30,000. 

The  Citizens'  Committee  has  received  $12,000, 
and  Governor  Ames'  check  for  $2  50  was  received. 

New  Bedford,  Mass.,  June  4. — Mayor  Clifford 
has  sent  $500  to  the  sufferers. 

Providence,  !£,  I.,  June  4. — A  meeting  of  busi- 
ness men  this  morning  raised  $4000  for  the 
sufferers. 

Erie,  Penn.,  June  4. — In  mass  meeting  last  night 
ex-Congressman  W.  L.  Scott  led  with  a  $1500 
subscription  for  Johnstown,  followed  by  ex-Judge 
Galbraith  with  $500.  The  list  footed  up  $6000  in 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Ward  committees  were 
appointed  to  raise  it  to  $10,000.  In  addition  to  a 
general  subscription  of  $1000,  which  was  sent  for- 
ward yesterday,  it  is  rumored  that  a  private  gift 
of  $5000  was  also  sent. 

Toledo,  June  4. — Two  thousand  dollars  have 
been  obtained  here  for  the  flood  sufferers. 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  275 

Cleveland,  June  4. — Over  $16,000  was  sub- 
scribed yesterday,  which,  added  to  the  $5000 
raised  on  Sunday,  swells  Cleveland's  cash  con- 
tributions to  $21,000.  Two  car-loads  of  provisions 
and  clothing  and  twenty-one  car-loads  of  lumber 
went  forward  to  Johnstown. 

Cincinnati,  June  4. — Subscriptions  amounting 
to  $10,000  were  taken  on  'Change  yesterday. 

Milwaukee,  June  4. — State  Grand  Commander 
Weissert  telegraphed  $250  to  the  Pennsylvania 
Department  yesterday. 

Detroit,  June  4. — The  relief  fund  already  reaches 
nearly  $1000.  Ex-Governor  Alger  and  Senator 
James  McMillan  have  each  telegraphed  $500  to 
the  scene  of  the  disaster. 

Chicago,  June  4. — A  meeting  of  business  men 
was  held  this  morning  to  collect  subscriptions. 
Several  large  subscriptions,  including  one  of 
$1000  by  Marshall  Field  &  Co.,  were  received. 
The  committees  expect  to  raise  $50,000  within 
twenty  four  hours. 

Governor  Fifer  has  issued  a  proclamation 
urging  the  people  to  take  measures  for  render- 
ing aid.  The  Aldermen  of  Chicago  subscribed 
among  themselves  a  purse  of  $1000.  The  jew- 
elers raised  $1500.  On  the  Board  of  Trade  one 
member  obtained  $5000,  and  another  $4000. 

From  a  citizens'  meeting  in  Denver  to-night 
$2500  was  raised. 


2/6  THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

President  Hughitt  announces  that  the  Chicago 
and  Northwestern,  the  Chicago,  St.  Paul,  Minne- 
apolis and  Omaha,  and  the  Fremont,  Elkhorn  and 
Missouri  Valley  Railways  will  transport,  free  of 
charge,  all  provisions  and  clothing  for  the  sufferers. 

Kansas  City,  Mo.,  June  4. — At  the  mass  meet- 
ing last  night  a  large  sum  was  subscribed  for  the 
sufferers. 

Chattanooga,  June  3. — Chattanooga  to-day  sub- 
scribed $500. 

Wilmington,  Del.,  June  4. — Over  $2700  has 
been  raised  here  for  the  sufferers.  A  carload  of 
supplies  was  shipped  last  night.  Two  doctors 
have  offered  their  services. 

Knoxville,  Tenn.,  June  4. — The  relief  commit- 
tee to-day  raised  over  $1500  in  two  hours  for  the 
sufferers  in  Johnstown  and  vicinity. 

Saratoga,   June  4. — The  village    of    Saratoga 

Springs  has  raised  $2000.     Judge  Henry  Hilton 

subscribed  one-half  the  amount.    A  committee  was 

appointed  to-night  to  solicit  additional  subscrip- 

.  tions. 

Carlisle,  Penn.,  June  4. — Aid  for  the  sufferers 
has  been  pouring  in  from  all  sections  of  the  Cum- 
berland Valley.  From  this  city  $700  and  a  sup- 
ply of  clothing  and  provisions  have  been  sent. 
Among  the  contributions  to-day  was  $100  from 
the  Indian  children  at  the  Government  training 
school. 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  June  4. — The  City  Council 
to-day  voted  $1000  for  the  relief  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania sufferers.  The  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  subscribed  $380  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  appointed  three  committees  to  can- 
vass for  subscriptions.  The  Merchants'  Exchange 
is  at  work  and  general  subscriptions  are  starting. 

St.  Louis,  June  4. — Generous  subscriptions  for 
the  Conemaugh  Valley  sufferers  have  been  made 
here.  The  Merchants'  Exchange  has  called  a 
mass  meeting  for  to-morrow. 

Middletown,  June  4. — To-day  the  Mayor  tele- 
graphed the  Mayor  of  Johnstown  to  draw  on  him 
for  $1000. 

Poughkeepsie,  June  4. — Mayor  Rowley  to-day 
sent  $1638  to  Drexel  &  Co.,  Philadelphia.  As 
much  more  was  subscribed  to-day. 

Auburn,  June 5. — Auburn  has  subscribed  $2000. 

Lockport,  N.  K,  June 5. — The  Brewers'  National 
Convention  at  Niagara  Falls  this  morning  con- 
tributed $10,000. 

St.  Johnsbury,Vt.,  June 5. — Grand  Master  Hen- 
derson issued  an  invitation  to-day  to  Odd  Fellows 
in  Vermont  to  contribute  toward  the  sufferers. 

Newburg,  N.  Y.,  June  5. — Newburg  has  raised 
about  $2000  for  the  sufferers. 

Worcester,  Mass.,  June  5. — Subscriptions  to  the 
amount  of  $2400  were  made  here  to-day. 

Boston,  June  5. — The  total  of  the  subscriptions 


278  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

received  through  Kidder.  Peabody  &  Co.  to-day 
amounted  to  $35,400.  The  Fall  River  Line  will 
forward  supplies  free  of  charge. 

Providence,  June  5. — The  subscriptions  here 
now  exceed  $i  1,000. 

Minneapolis,  June  5. — The  Citizens'  Committee 
to-day  voted  to  send  2000  barrels  of  flour  to  the 
sufferers. 

Chicago,  June  5. — It  is  estimated  that  Chicago's 
cash  contributions  to  date  aggregate  about  $90,- 
ooo. 

St.  Louis,  June  5. — The  town  of  Desoto  in  this 
State  has  contributed  $200.  Litchfield,  111.,  has 
also  raised  $200. 

Los  Angeles,  CaL,  June  5. — This  city  has  for- 
warded $2000  to  Governor  Beaver. 

Macon,  June  5. — The  City  Council  last  night 
appropriated  $200  for  the  sufferers. 

Chattanooga,  Tenn.,  June  5. — A.  B.  Forrest 
Camp,  No.  3,  Confederate  Veterans  of  Chatta- 
nooga, have  contributed  $100  to  the  relief  fund. 
J.  M.  Duncan,  general  manager  of  the  South 
Tredegar  Iron  Company,  of  this  city,  who  a  few 
years  ago  left  Johnstown  for  Chattanooga  as  a 
young  mechanic,  sent  $1000  to-day  to  the  relief 
fund.  Another  $1000  will  be  sent  from  the  pro- 
ceeds of  a  popular  subscription. 

Savannah,  June  5. — The  Savannah  Benevolent 
Association  subscribed  $1000  for  the  sufferers. 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD. 

Binghamton,  June  5. — More  than  $2600  will 
be  sent  to  Johnstown  from  this  city.  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Jones  telegraphed  that  he  would  sub- 
scribe $100. 

Albany,  June  $. — Mayor  Maher  has  telegraphed 
the  Mayor  of  Pittsburg  to  draw  on  him  for  $3000. 
The  fund  being  raised  by  The  Morning  Express 
amounts  to  over  $i  141. 

Lebanon,  Penn.,  June  5. — This  city  will  raise 
$5000  for  the  sufferers. 

RocJicster,  June  5". — Over  $400  was  subscribed 

*     *^  ^X  7r     I 

to  the  Red  Cross  relief  fund  to-day  and  $i  19  to  a 
newspaper  fund  besides. 

Cleveland,  June  5. — The  cash  collected  in  this 
city  up  to  this  evening  is  $38,000.  Ten  car-loads 
of  merchandise  were  shipped  to  Johnstown  to- 
day, and  a  special  train  of  twenty-eight  car-loads  of 
lumber,  from  Cleveland  dealers,  left  here  to-night. 

Fonda,  N.  K,  June  5. — The  people  of  Johns- 
town, N.  Y.,  instead  of  making  an  appropriation 
with  which  to  celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July,  will 
send  $1000  to  the  sufferers  at  Johnstown,  Pa. 

New  Haven,  June  5. — Over  $2000  has  been 
collected  here. 

Wilmington,  Del.,  June  5. — This  city's  fund  has 
reached  $470.  The  second  car-load  of  supplies 
will  be  shipped  to-morrow. 

Glens  Falls,  N.  Y.,  June  5. — Subscriptions  here 
to-day  amounted  to  $622. 


2  SO  THE  JOHNS  TO  Wff  FL  0  OD. 

Poughkcepsic,  June  5. — Up  to  this  evening 
$2736  have  been  raised  in  this  city  for  Johnstown. 

Washington,  June  7. — The  total  cash  contribu- 
tions of  the  employees  of  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment to  date,  amounting  to  $2070,  were  to-day 
handed  to  the  treasurer  of  the  Relief  Fund  of 
Washington.  The  officers  and  clerks  of  the  sev- 
eral bureaus  of  the  Interior  Department  have 
subscribed  $2280.  The  contributions  in  the  Gov- 
ernment Printing  Office  aggregate  $1275.  Chief 
Clerk  Cooley  to-day  transmitted  to  the  chairman 
of  the  local  committee  $600  collected  in  the  Post- 

IT 

office  Department. 

Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  June  7. — Mayor  Kirk  to-day 
sent  to  Governor  Beaver  a  draft  for  $3000. 

Utica,  N.  y.,  June  /. — Ilion  has  raised  $1100, 
and  has  sent  six  cases  of  clothing  to  Johnstown. 

The  Little  Falls  subscription  is  $700  thus  far. 

The  Utica  subscription  is  now  nearly  56000. 

Thus  the  gifts  of  the  people  flowed  in,  day  by 
day,  from  near  and  from  far,  from  rich  and  from 
poor,  to  make  less  dark  the  awful  desolation  that 
had  set  up  its  fearful  reign  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Conemaugh. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  city  of  Philadelphia  with  characteristic 
generosity  began  the  work  of  raising  a 
relief  fund  on  the  day  following  the  disaster,  the 
Mayor's  office  and  Drexel's  banking  house  being 
the  chief  centres  of  receipt.  Within  four  days 
six  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  in  hand.  A 
most  thorough  organization  and  canvass  of  all 

o  G 

trades  and  branches  of  business  was  made  under 
the  following  committees: 

O 

Machinery  and  Iron — George  Burnham,  Daniel  A.  Waters, 
William  Sellers,  W.  B.  Bement,  Hamilton  Disston,  Walter 
Wood,  J.  Lowber  Welsh,  W.  C.  Allison,  Charles  Gilpin,  Jr., 
E.  Y.  Townsend,  Dawson  Hoopes,  Alvin S.Patterson,  Charles 
H.  Cramp,  and  John  H.  Brill. 

Attorneys — Mayer  Sulzberger,  George  S.  Graham,  George 
W.  Biddle,  Lewis  C.  Cassidy,  William  F.  Johnson,  Joseph 
Parrish,  Hampton  L.  Carson,  John  C.  Bullitt,  John  R.  Read, 
anil  Samuel  B.  Huey. 

Physicians — William  Pepper,  Horatio  C.  Wood,  Thomas 
G.  Morton,  W.  H.  Pancoast,  D.  Hayes  Agnew,  and  William 
W.  Keen. 

Insurance — R,  Dale  Benson,  C.  J.  Madeira,  E.  J.  Durban, 
and  John  Taylor. 

28l 


2g2  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Chemicals — William  Weightman,  H.  B.  Rosengarten,  and 
John  Wyeth. 

City  Officers — John  Bardsley,  Henry  Clay,  Robert  P. 
Dechert,  S.  Davis  Page,  and  Judge  R.  N.  Willson. 

Paper — A.  G.  Elliott,  Whitney  Paper  Company,  W.  E.  & 
E.  D.  Lockwood,  Alexander  Balfour,  and  the  Nescochague 
Paper  Manufacturing  Company. 

Coal — Charles  F.  Berwind,  Austin  Corbin,  Charles  E.  Bar- 
rington,  and  George  B.  Newton. 

Wool  Dealers— W.  W.  Justice,  David  Scull,  Coates  Broth- 
ers, Lewis  S.  Fish  &  Co.,  and  Theodore  C.  Search. 

Commercial  Exchange — Walter  F.  Hagar  and  William 
Brice. 

Board  of  Trade — Frederick  Fraley,  T.  Morris  Perot,  John 
H.  Michener,  and  Joel  Cook. 

Book  Trade,  Printing,  and  Newspapers — Charles  Emory 
Smith,  Walter  Lippincott,  A.  K.  McClure,  Charles  E.  War- 
burton,  Thomas  MacKellar,  William  M.  Singerly,  Charles 
Heber  Clark,  and  William  V.  McKean. 

Furniture — Charles  B.  Adamson,  Hale,  Kilburn  &  Co., 
John  H.  Sanderson,  and  Amos  Hillborn  &  Co. 

Bakers  and  Confectioners — Godfrey  Keebler,  Carl  Edel- 
heim,  Croft  &  Allen,  and  H.  O.  Wilbur  &  Sons. 

China,  etc.— R.  J.  Allen,-  and  Tyndale,  Mitchell  &  Co. 

Lumber — Thomas  P.  C.  Stokes,  William  M.  Lloyd  Com- 
pany, Henry  Bayard  &  Co.,  Geissel  &  Richardson,  and  D.  A. 
Woelpper. 

Cloth  and  Tailors'  Trimmings — Edmund  Lewis,  Henry  N. 
Steel,  Joseph  R.  Keim,  John  Albtirger,  nnd  Samuel  Goodman. 

Notions,  etc. — Joel  J.  Baily,  John  Field,  Samuel  Clarkson, 
John  C.  Sullivan,  William  Super,  John  C.  File,  and  W.  B. 
Hackenberg. 

Clothing — H.  B.  Blumenthnl,  William  Allen,  Leo  Loeb, 
William  H.  Wanamaker,  Alan  H.  Reed,  Morris  Newberger, 
Nathan  Snellenburg,  Samuel  Goodman,  and  John  Alburger. 


THE    JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Dry  Goods  Manufacturers — Lincoln  Godfrey,  Lemuel 
Coffin,  N.  Parker  Shortridge,  and  W.H.  Folwell. 

Wholesale  Dry  Goods — Samuel  B.  Brown,  John  M.  Howett, 
Henry  H.  Ellison,  and  Edward  T.  Steel. 

Retail  Dry  Goods — Joseph  G.  Darlington,  Isaac  H. 
Clothier,  Granville  B.  Haines,  and  Henry  W.  Sharpless. 

Jewelers — Mr.  Bailey,  of  Bailey,  Banks  &  Biddle ;  James 
E.  Caldwell,  and  Simon  Muhr. 

Straw  Goods,  Hats,  and  Millinery — John  Adler,  C.  H. 
Garden  &  Co.,  and  Henry  Tilge. 

City  Railways — Alexander  M.  Fox,  William  H.  Kemble, 
E.  B.  Edwards,  John  F.  Sullivan,  and  Charles  E.  Ellis. 

Photography— F.  Gutekunst,  A.  K.  P.  Trask,  and  H.  C. 
Phillips. 

Pianos  and  Musical — W.  D.  Dutton,  Schomacker  Piano 
Company,  and  C.  J.  Heppe. 

Plumbers — William  Harkness,  Jr.,  J.  Futhey  Smith,  C.  A. 
Blessing,  and  Henry  B.  Tatham. 

Liquors  and  Brewers — Joseph  F.  Sinnott,  Bergner  &  Engel, 
John  Gardiner,  and  John  F.  Betz. 

Hotels— E.  F.  Kingsley,  Thomas  Green,  L.  U.  Maltby, 
C.  H.  Reisser,  and  H.  J.  Crump. 

Butchers — Frank  Bower  and  Shuster  Boraef. 

Woolen  Manufacturers — William  Wood,  George  Campbell, 
Joseph  P.  Truitt,  and  John  C.  Watt. 

Retail  Grocers — George  B.  Woodman,  George  A.  Fletcher, 
Robert  Ralston,  H.  B.  Summers,  and  E.  J.  Hewlett. 

Boots  and  Shoes — John  Mundell,  John  G.  Croxton,  Henry 
Z.  Ziegler,  and  A.  A.  Shumway. 

Theatrical — J.  Fred.  Zimmerman,  Israel  Fleishman,  and 
T.  F.  Kelly. 

Tobacco  Trade — M.  J.  Dohan,  L.  Bamberger,  E.  H. 
Frishmuth,  Jr.,  Walter  Garrett,  M.  E.  McDowell,  J.  H. 
Baltz,  Henry  Weiner,  and  George  W.  Bremer. 

Hosiery  Manufactures — J.  B.  Allen  and  James  B.  Doak,  Jr. 


TIIE  J°n&STOWN  FLOOD. 

Real  Estate — Adam  Everly,  John  M.  Guramcy,  and 
Lewis  H.  Rcdner. 

Cordage— E.  H.  Filler,  John  T.  Bailey,  and  Charles 
Lawrence. 

Patent  Pavement — Dr.  L.  S.  Filbert  and  James  Stewart, 

Jr. 

Bankers  and  Brokers — Winthrop  Smith,  Robert  H.  Glen- 
denning,  George  H.  Thomas,  William  G.  Warden,  Lindley 
Smyth,  Thomas  Cochran,  J.  L.  Erringer,  Charles  H.  Banes, 
Wharton  Barker,  and  Jacob  Naylor. 

Wholesale  Grocers  and  Sugar  Refiners — Francis  B. 
Reeves,  Edward  C.  Knight,  Adolph  Spreckels,  William 
Janney,  and  Charles  C.  Harrison. 

Shirt  Manufacturers  and  Dealers — Samuel  Sternberger  and 
Jacob  Miller. 

Carpets — James  Dobson,  Robert  Dornan,  Hugh  McCallum, 
John  F.-Orne,  John  R.  White,  and  Thomas  Potter,  Jr. 

Saddlery  Hardware,  etc.— William  T.  Lloyd,  of  Lloyd  & 
Supplee;  Conrad  B.  Day,  George  DeB.  Keim,  Charles 
Thackarajohn  C.  Cornelius,  William  Elkins,  Jr.,  and  James 
Peters. 

By  Tuesday  the  tide  of  relief  was  flowing 
strongly.  On  that  day  between  eight  and  nine 
thousand  packages  of  goods  were  sent  to  the 
freight  depot  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  to  be 
forwarded  to  the  sufferers.  Wagons  came  in 
an  apparently  endless  strearrTand  the  quantity  of 
goods  received  far  exceeded  that  of  any  previous 
day.  Eight  freight  cars,  tightly  packed,  were 
shipped  to  Johnstown,  while  five  car-loads  of  pro- 
visions were  sent  to  Williamsport,  and  one  of  pro- 
visions to  Lewistown. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  28^ 

v/ 

The    largest    consignment  of  roods   from  an 

O  O  O 

individual  was  sent  to  Williamsport  by  W.  M. 
McCormick.  He  was  formerly  a  resident  of  Wil- 
liamsport, and  when  he  heard  that  the  people  of 
that  city  were  suffering  for  want  of  provisions,  he 
immediately  went  out  and  ordered  a  car-load  of 
flour  (one  hundred  and  twenty-five  barrels)  and 
a  car-load  of  groceries  and  provisions,  consisting 
of  dried  and  smoked  meats,  sugar,  crackers,  and 
a  large  assortment  of  other  necessaries.  Mr. 
McCormick  said  he  thought  that  several  of  his 

O 

friends  would  go  in  with  him  when  they  knew  of 
the  venture,  but  if  they  did  not  he  would  foot  all 
the  bills  himself. 

The  saddest  incident  of  the  day  was  the  visit  of 
a  handsome  young  lady,  about  twenty-three  years 
of  age.  She  was  accompanied  by  an  older  lady, 
and  brought  three  packages  of  clothing.  It  was 
Miss  Clydia  Blackford,  whose  home  was  in  Johns- 
town. She  said  sobbingly  that  every  one  of  her 
relatives  and  friends  had  been  lost  in  the  floods, 
and  her  home  entirely  wiped  out.  The  gift  of  the 
packages  to  the  sufferers  of  her  old  home  seemed 
to  give  her  a  sort  of  sad  pleasure.  She  departed 
with  tears  in  her  eyes. 

When  the  convicts  in  the  Eastern  Penitentiary 
learned  of  the  disaster  through  the  weekly  papers 
which  arrived  on  Wednesday  and  Thursday— the 
only  papers  they  are  allowed  to  receive — a  thing 


2  '^6  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

that  will  seem  incongruous  to  the  outside  world 
happened.  The  criminal,  alone  in  his  cell,  was 
touched  with  the  same  sympathy  and  desire  to 
help  fellow-men  in  sore  distress  as  the  good  peo- 
ple who  have  been  filling  relief  depots  with  sup- 
plies and  coffers  with  money.  Each  as  he  read 
the  story  of  the  flood  would  knoclc  on  his  wicket 
and  tell  the  keeper  he  wanted  to  give  some  of  his 
money. 

The  convicts,  by  working  over  and  above  their 
daily  task,  are  allowed  small  pay  for  the  extra 
time.  Half  the  .money  so  earned  goes  to  the 
county  from  which  the  convict  comes  and  half  to 
the  convict  himself.  The  maximum  amount  a 
Cherry  Hill  inmate  can  make  in  a  week  for  him- 
self is  one  dollar. 

The  keepers  told  Warden  Cassidy  of  the  desire 
expressed  all  along  that  the  authorities  receive 
their  contributions.  The  convicts  can  do  what 
they  please  with  their  over-time  money,  by  sending 
it  to  their  friends,  and  several  had  already  sent 
small  sums  out  of  the  Penitentiary  to  be  given  to 
the  Johnstown  sufferers.  The  warden  very  promptly 
acceded  to  the  general  desire  and  gave  the 
keepers  instructions.  There  are  about  one  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  ten  men  imprisoned  in  the 
institution,  and  of  this  number  one  hundred  and 
forty-six  persons  gave  five  hundred  and  forty- two 
dollars  and  ninety-six  cents.  It  would  take  one 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  28? 

convict  working  ail  his  extra  time  ten  years  to 
earn  that  sum. 

There  was  one  old  man,  a  cripple,  who  had  fif- 
teen dollars  to  his  credit.  He  said  to  the  keeper: 
"  I've  been  doing  crooked  work  nearly  all  my  life, 
and  I  want  to  do  something  square  this  time.  I 
want  to  give  all  the  money  coming  to  me  for 
these  fellers  out  there."  The  warden,  however, 
had  made  a  rule  prohibiting  any  individual  from 
contributing  more  than  five  dollars.  The  old  man 
was  told  this,  but  he  was  determined.  "Look 
here,"  said  he ;  "  I'll  send  the  rest  of  my  money 
out  to  my  folks  and  tell  them  to  send  it." 

Chief  of  Police  Mayer,  in  denying  reports  that 
there  was  an  influx  of  professional  thieves  into  the 
flooded  regions  to  rob  the  dead,  said:  "The 
thieves  wouldn't  do  anything  like  that ;  there  is 
too  much  of  the  orentleman  in  them."  But  here 

o 

were  thieves  and  criminals  going  into  their  own 
purses  out  of  that  same  "  gentlemanly  "  part  of 
them. 

Up  to  Saturday,  June  8th,  the  cash  contri- 
butions in  Philadelphia,  amounted  to  $687,872,68. 
Meantime  countless  gifts  and  expressions  of  sym- 
pathy came  from  all  over  the  world.  The  Lord 
Mayor  of  Dublin,  Ireland,  raised  a  fui  d  of 
$5,000.  Archbishop  Walsh  gave  $500. 

Sir  Julian  Pauncefote,  the  British  Minister  at 
Washington,  called  on  the  President  on  June  7th, 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  fLOOD. 

in  company  with  Secretary  Elaine,  and  delivered 
a  message  from  Queen  Victoria  expressing  her 
deep  sympathy  for  the  sufferers  by  the  recent 
floods  in  Pennsylvania.  The  President  said  in 
reply  : 

"  Mr.  Minister :  This  message  of  sympathy 
from  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  will  be  accepted  by 
our  people  as  another  expression  of  her  own 
generous  character,  as  well  as  of  the  friendliness 
and  good-will  of  her  people.  The  disasters 
which  have  fallen  upon  several  communities  in  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  while  extreme  and  full  of 
the  most  tragic  and  horrifying  incidents,  have  for- 
tunately been  limited  in  territorial  extent.  The 
generosity  of  our  own  citizens  will  promptly 
lessen  to  these  stricken  people  every  loss  that  is 
not  wholly  irretrievable  ;  and  these  the  sympathy 
of  the  Queen  and  the  English  people  will  help  to 
assuage.  Will  you,  Mr.  Minister,  be  pleased  to 
convey  to  the  Queen  the  sincere  thanks  of  the 
American  people." 

A  newspaper  correspondent  called  upon  the 
illustrious  Miss  Florence  Nightingale,  at  her 

o  o 

home  in  London,  and  asked  her  to  send  a  mes- 
sage to  America  regarding:  the  floods.  In  re- 

O  GO 

sponse,  she  wrote : 

"  I  am  afraid  that  I  cannot  write  such  a  mes- 
sage as  I  would  wish  to  just  at  this  moment.  I 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  2Ql 

am  so  overdone.  I  have  the  deepest  sympathy 
with  the  poor  sufferers  by  the  floods,  and  with 
Miss  Clara  Barton,  of  the  Red  Cross  Societies, 
and  the  good  women  who  are  hastening  to  their 
help,  I  am  so  overworked  and  ill  that  I  can  feel 
all  the  more  but  write  all  the  less  for  the  crying 
necessity. 

(Signed)  "  FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE." 

Though  Miss  Nightingale  is  sixty-nine  years  old, 
and  an  invalid,  this  note  was  written  in  a  hand  indi- 
cating all  the  strength  and  vigor  of  a  schoolgirl. 
She  is  seldom  able  to  go  out  now,  though  when 
she  can  she  dearly  loves  to  visit  the  Nightingale 
Home  for  Training  Nurses,  which  constitutes  such 
an  enduring  monument  and  noble  record  of  her 
life.  But,  though  in  feeble  health,  Miss  Nightingale 
manages  to  do  a  great  deal  of  work  yet.  From  all 
parts  of  the  world  letters  pour  in  upon  her,  ask- 
ing advice  and  suggestions  on  matters  of  hospital 
management,  of  health  and  of  education,  all  of 
which  she  seldom  fails  to  answer. 

Last,  but  not  least,  let  it  be  recorded  that  the 
members  of  the  club  that  owned  the  fatal  lake  sent 
promptly  a  thousand  blankets  and  many  thou- 
sands of  dollars  to  t^ie  sufferers  from  the  floods, 
which  had  been  caused  by  their  own  lack  of  proper 
supervision  of  the  dam. 
17 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

NEW  YORK,  Philadelphia,  and  Pittsburg 
were,  of  course,  the  three  chief  centres  of 
charitable  contributions,  and  the  sources  from 
which  the  golden  flood  of  relief  was  poured  into 
the  devastated  valley.  One  of  the  earliest  gifts 
in  New  York  city  was  that  of  $1,200,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  a  collection  taken  on  Sunday  morning, 
June  2d,  in  the  West  Presbyterian  Church,  after 
an  appeal  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  R.  Paxton,  the 
pastor.  The  next  day  a  meeting  of  prominent 
New  York  business  men  was  held  at  the  Mayor's 
office,  and  a  relief  committee  was  formed.  At  this 
meeting  many  contributions  were  announced. 
Isidor  Wormser  said  that  the  Produce  Exchange 
had  raised  $15,000  for  the  sufferers.  Ex-Mayor 
Grace  reported  that  the  Lackawanna  Coal  and 
Iron  Company  had  telegraphed  the  Cambria  Iron 
Company  to  draw  upon  it  for  $5,000  for  the 
relief  of  the  Cambria's  employees.  Mayor  Grant 
announced  that  he  had  received  letters  and  checks 
during  the  forenoon  aggregating  the  sum  of 
292 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

$15,000,  and  added  his  own  for  $500.  Subscrip- 
tions of  $1,000  each  were  offered  as  fast  as  the 
Secretary  could  record  them  by  Kuhn,  Loeb  & 
Co.,  Jesse  Seligman,  Calvin  S.  Brice,  Winslow, 
Lanier  &  Co.,  Morris  K.  Jesup,  Oswald  Otten- 
dorfer,  R.  H.  Macy  &  Co.,  M.  Schiff  &  Co.,  and 
O.  B.  Potter.  Sums  of  $500  were  subscribed 
with  equal  cheerfulness  by  Eugene  Kelly,  Sidney 
Dillon,  the  Chatham  National  Bank,  Controller 
Myers,  Cooper,  Hewitt  &  Co.,  Frederick  Gallatin, 
Tefft,  Weller  &  Co.,  City  Chamberlain  Croker, 
and  Tiffany  &  Co.  Numerous  gifts  of  less  sums 
quickly  followed.  Elliott  F.  Shepard  announced 
that  the  Mail  and  Express  had  already  sent 
$10,000  to  Johnstown.  Before  the  Committee  on 
Permanent  Organization  had  time  to  report,  the 
Secretary  gave  out  the  information  that  $27,000 
had  been  subscribed  since  the  meeting  was  called 
to  order.  Before  the  day  was  over  no  less  than 
$75,000  had  been  received  at  the  Mayor's  office, 
including  the  following  subscriptions: 

Pennsylvania  Relief  Committee  of  the  Maritime  Associa- 
tion of  the  Port  of  Ne\r  York,  Gustav  H.  Schwab,  Treasurer, 
£3,435;  Chatham  National  Bank,  $500;  Morris  K.  Jesup, 
$1,000;  William  Steinway,  $1,000;  Theodore  W.  Myers, 
$500;  J.  G.  Moore,  $1,000;  J.  W.  Gerard,  $200;  Platt  & 
Bowers, 5250;  Henry  L.  Hoguet,  $100  ;  Harry  Miner,  $200; 
Tefft,  Weller  &  Co.,  $500;  Louis  May,  $200;  Madison 
Square  Bank,  $200;  Richard  Croker,  $500;  Tiffany  &  Co., 
£500;  John  Fox,  $200;  Jacob  H.  Schiff,  $1,000;  Nash  & 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  OOD. 

Brush,  $100 ;  Oswald  Ottendorfer,  $1,000;  William  P.  St. 
John,  $100  ;  George  Hoadly,  forHoadly,  Lauterbach  &  John- 
son, $250;  Edwin  Forrest  Lodge,  Order  of  Friendship,  $200; 
W.  T.  Sherman,  $100;  W.  L.  Stone,  $500;  John  R.  Dos 
Passes,  $250;  G.  G.  Williams,  $100;  Coudert  Bros.,  $f£o ; 
Staats-Zeitung,  $1,166;  Cooper,  Hewitt  &  Co.,  $500;  Fred- 
erick Gallatin,  $500  ;  R.  H.  Macy  &  Co.,  $1,000  ;  Mr.  Cald- 
well,  $100 ;  C.  N.  Bliss,  $500;  Ward  &  Olyphant,  $100; 
Eugene  Kelly,  $500;  Lackawanna  Coal  and  Iron  Company, 
through  Mayor  Grace,  $5,000;  W.  R.  Grace,  $500;  G. 
Schwab  &  Bros.,  $300;  Kuhn,  Loeb  &  Co.,  $  1,000 ;  Central 
Trust  Co.,  $1,000;  Calvin  S.  Brice,  $1,000;  J.  S.  Seligman 
&  Co.,  $1,000;  Sidney  Dillon,  $500;  Winslow,  Lanier  & 
Co.,  $1,000;  Hugh  J.  Grant,  $500;  Orlando  B.  Potter, 
$1,000. 

Through  The  Tribune,  $319.75;  through  The  Sun,  $87.50; 
from  Tammany  Society,  through  Richard  Croker,  $1,000; 
Joseph  Pulitzer,  $2,000;  Lazard  Freres,  $1,000;  Arnold, 
Constable  &  Co.,  $1,000  ;  D.  H.  King,  Jr.,  $1,000;  August 
Belmont  &  Co.,  $1,000;  New  York  Life  Insurance  Co., 
$500;  John  D.  Crimmins,  $500;  Nathan  Manufacturing  Co., 
$500;  Hugh  N.  Camp,  $250;  National  Railway  Publishing 
Co.,  $200;  William  Openhym  &  Sons,  $200;  New  York 
Transfer  Co.,  $200 ;  Warner  Brothers,  $100 ;  L.  J.  and  I. 
Phillips,  $100;  John  Davel  &  Sons,  $100;  Hoole  Manufac- 
turing Co.,  $100;  Hendricks  Brothers,  $100;  Rice&Bijur, 
$100;  C.  A.  Auffmordt,  $100;  Thomas  C.  T.  Grain,  $100; 
J.  J.  Wysong  &  Co.,  $100;  Megroz,  Portier,  &  Meg- 
roz  &  Co.,  $100 ;  Foster,  Paul  &  Co.,  $100;  S.  Stein 
&  Co.,  $100;  James  McCreery  &  Co.,  $100 ;  Lazell, 
Dalley  &  Co.,  $100;  George  W.  Walling,  $100;  Thomas 
Garnei  &  Co  ,  $100;  John  Simpson,  $100;  W.  H.  Schieffelin 
&  Co..  $100;  through  A.  Schwab,  $1,400;  H.  C.  F.  Koch 
&  Co.,  $100;  George  T.  Hoadly,  $250;  G.  Sidenburg  & 
Co.,  $100;  Ward  &  Oliphant,  $100;  Robert  Bonner,  $1,000; 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  205 

Horace  White,  $100 ;  A.  H.  Cridge,  $250 ;  Edward  Shriever, 
$300;  C.  H.  Ludington,  $100;  Gamewell  Fire  Alarm  Tele- 
graph Company  of  New  York,  $200;  Warner  Brothers,  $100; 
New  York  Times  (cash).  $100;  cash  items,  $321.20;  Ben- 
nett Building,  $105. 

Shortly  after  the  opening  of  the  New  York 
Stock  Exchange  a  subscription  was  started  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Johnstown  sufferers.  The  Govern- 
ing Committee  of  the  Exchange  made  Albert 
King  treasurer  of  the  Exchange  Relief  Fund,  and, 
although  many  leading  members  were  absent 
from  the  floor,  as  is  usual  on  Monday  at  this  sea- 
son of  the  year,  the  handsome  sum  of  $14,520 
was  contributed  by  the  brokers  present  at  the 
close  of  business.  Among  the  subscriptions  re- 
ceived were  : 

Vermilye  &  Co.,  gr,ooo;  Moore  &  Schley,  $1,000;  L. 
Von  Hoffman  &  Co.,  $500;  N.  S.  Jones,  $500;  Speyer  & 
Co.,  $500;  Homans  &  Co.,  $500;  Work,  Strong  &  Co., 
$250  ;  Washington  E.  Connor,  $250  ;  Van  Emberg  &  Atter- 
bury,  $250  ;  Simon  Borg  &  Co.,  $250 ;  Chauncey  &  Gwynne 
Bros.,  $250;  John  D.  Slayback,  $250;  Woerishoffer  &  Co., 
$250;  S.  V.  White,  $250;  I.  &  S.  Wormser,  $250;  Henry 
Clews  &  Co. ,$250;  Ladenberg,  Thalmann  &  Co.,  $250; 
John  H.  Davis  &  Co.,  $200;  Jones,  Kennett  &  Hopkins, 
$200;  H.  B.  Goldschmidt,  $200;  other  subscriptions, 
$7,170- 

Generosity  rose  higher  still  on  Tuesday.  Early 
in  the  day  $5,000  was  received  by  cable  from 
the  London  Stock  Exchange.  John  S.  Kennedy 


2g6  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

also  sent  $5,000  from  London.   John  Jacob  Astor 
subscribed   $2,500     and    William   Astor  $1,000. 
Other  contributions  received  at  the  Mayor's  office 
*  were  these : 

Archbishop  Corrigan,$25o  ;  Straiton  &  Storm,  $250;  Bliss, 
Fabyan  &  Co.,  £500;  Funk  &  Wagnalls,  $100  ;  Nathan 
Straus,  #1,000  ;  Sidney  Dillon,  $500;  Winslow,  Lanier  & 
Co.,  $1,000 ;  Henry  Hilton,  $5,000  ;  R.  J.  Livingston, 
$  1,000  ;  Peter  Marie,  $100  ;  The  Dick  &  Meyer  Co.,  Wm. 
Dick,  President,  $1,000  ;  Decastro  &  Donner  Sugar  Refining 
Co.,  $1,000;  Havemeyers  &  Elder  Sugar  Refining  Co., 
$1,000  ;  Frederick  Gallatin,  $5°°  ;  Continental  National 
Bank,  from  Directors,  $1,000  ;  F.  O.  Mattiessen&  Wiechers' 
Sugar  Refining  Co.,  $1,000  ;  Phelps,  Dodge  &  Co.,  #2,500  ; 
Knickerbocker  Ice  Co.,  $  i, ooo  ;  First  National  Bank,  $1,000; 
Apollinaris  Water  Co.,  London,  $1,000  ;  W.  &  J.  Sloane, 
$1,000 ;  Tefft,  Weller  &  Co.,  $500  ;  New  York  Stock  Ex- 
change, $20,000  ;  Board  of  Trade,  $1,000  ;  Central  Trust 
Co.,  $1,000  ;  Samuel  Sloan,  $200. 

The  following  contributions  were  made  in  ten 
minutes  at  a  special  meeting  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce : 

Brown  Brothers  &  Co.,  $2,500  ;  Morton,  Bliss  &  Co., 
$1,000  ;  H.  B.  Claflin  &  Co.,  $2,000  ;  Percy  R.  Pyne,  $1,000 ; 
Fourth  National  Bank,  $1,000  ;  E.  D.  Morgan  &  Co., 
$1,000  ;  C.  S.  Smith,  $500  ;  J.  M.  Ceballas,  $500  ;  Barbour 
Brothers  &  Co.,  $500  ;  Naumberg,  Kraus  &  Co.,  $500  ;  Thos. 
F.  Rowland,  $500  ;  Bliss,  Fabyan  &  Co.,  $500  ;  William  H. 
Parsons  &  Co.,  $250  ;  Smith,  Hogg  &  Gardner,  $250  ;  Doe- 
run  Lead  Company,  $250  ;  A.  R.  Whitney  &  Co.,  $250  ; 
Williams  &  Peters,  $100  ;  Joy,  Langdon  &Co.,  $250  ;  B.  L. 
Solomon's  Sons,  $100  ;  D.  F.  Hiernan,  $100;  A.  S.  Rosen- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

baum,  $100  ;  Henry  Rice,  $100  ;  Parsons  &  Petitt,  $100  ; 
Thomas  H.  Wood  &  Co.,  $100  ;  T.  B.  Coddington,  $100  ; 
John  I.  Howe,  $50  ;  John  Bigelow,  $50  ;  Morrison,  Herri- 
man  &  Co.,  £250  ;  Frederick  Sturges,  $250  ;  James  O.  Car- 
penter, $50  ;  C.  H.  Mallory,  $500 ;  George  A.  Low,  $25  ; 
Henry  W.  T.  Mali  &  Co.,  $500  ;  C.  Adolph  Low,  $50  ;  C.  C. 
Peck,  $ 20.  Total,  $15,295. 

Thousands  of  dollars  also  came  in  from  the 
Produce  Exchange,  Cotton  Exchange,  Metal  Ex- 
change, Coffee  Exchange,  Real  Estate  Exchange, 
etc.  The  Adams  Express  Co.  gave  $5,000,  and 
free  carriage  of  all  oroods  for  the  sufferers.  The 

O  O 

Mutual  Life  Insurance  Co.,  gave  $10,000.  And 
so  all  the  week  the  gifts  were  made.  Jay  Gould, 
gave  $1,000;  the  Jewish  Temple  Emanuel, 
$1,500;  The  Hide  and  Leather  Trade,  $5,000; 
the  Commercial  Cable  Co.,  $500 ;  the  Ancient 
Order  of  Hibernians,  $270;  J.  B.  &  J.  H.  Cor- 
nell, $1,000;  the  New  York  Health  Department, 
$500 ;  Chatham  National  Bank,  $500  ;  the  boys 
of  the  House  of  Refuge  on  Randall's  Island, 
$258.22.  Many  gifts  came  from  other  towns  and 
cities. 

Kansas  City,  $12,000  ;  Cincinnati  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
$22,106;  Washington  Post  Office,  $600  ;  Boston,  $94,000; 
Willard  (N.  Y.)  Asylum  for  Insane,  $136;  Washington 
Government  Printing  Office,  $1,275  ;  Saugerties  N.  Y.,  $850; 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  $1,600;  Cornell  University,  $1,100;  White- 
hall, N.  Y.,  $600 ;  Washington  Interior  Department, 
$2,280;  Schenectady,  N.  Y.,  $3,000;  Albany,  $10,500; 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Washington  Treasury  Department,  $2,070;  Augusta,  Ga., 
$1,000;  Charleston,  S.  C.,  13,500;  Utica,  N.  Y.,  $6,000; 
Little  Falls,  N.  Y.,  $700;  Ilion,  N.  Y.,  $1,100;  Trenton, 
N.  J.,  $12,000;  Cambridge,  Mass., -$3,500 ;  Haverhill, 
Mass.,  $1,500;  Lawrence,  Mass.,  $5,000;  Salem,  Mass., 
$1,000;  Taunton,  Mass.,  $1,010;  New  London,  Conn., 
$1.120;  Newburyport,  Mass.,  $1,500. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  above  to  give  any- 
thing more  than  a  few  random  and  representative 
names,  of  givers.  The  entire  roll  would  fill  a 
volume.  By  the  end  of  the  week  the  cash  con- 
tributions in  New  York  city  amounted  to  more 
than  $600,000.  Collections  in  churches  on  Sun- 
day, June  gth,  aggregated  $15,000  more.  Benefit 
performances  at  the  theatres  the  next  week 
brought  up  the  grand  total  to  about  $700,000. 


CHAPTER    XXVI, 

AND  now  begins  the  task  of  burying  the  dead 
and  caring  for  the  living.  It  is  Wednesday 
morning.  Scarcely  has  daylight  broken  before  a 
thousand  funerals  are  in  progress  on  the  green  hill- 
sides. There  were  no  hearses,  few  mourners,  and 
as  little  solemnity  as  formality.  The  majority  of 
the  coffins  were  of  rough  pine.  The  pall-bearers 
were  strong  ox-teams,  and  instead  of  six  pall- 
bearers to  one  coffin,  there  were  generally  six 
coffins  to  one-team.  Silently  the  processions 
moved,  and  silently  they  unloaded  their  burdens 
in  the  lap  of  mother  earth.  No  minister  of  God 
was  there  to  pronounce  a  last  blessing  as  the 
clods  rattled  down,  except  a  few  faithful  priests 
who  had  followed  some  representatives  of  their 
faith  to  the  grave. 

All  day  long  the  corpses  were  being  hurried 
below  ground.  The  unidentified  bodies  were 
grouped  on  a  high  hill  west  of  the  doomed  city, 
where  one  epitaph  must  do  for  all,  and  that  the 
word  "  unknown." 

299 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Almost  every  stroke  of  the  pick  in  some  por- 
tions of  the  city  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  an- 
other victim,  and,  although  the  funerals  of  the 
morning  relieved  the  morgues  of  their  crush, 
before  night  they  were  as  full  of  the  dead  as  ever. 
Wherever  one  turns  the  melancholy  view  of  a 
coffin  is  met.  Every  train  into  Johnstown  was 
laden  with  them,  the  better  ones  being  generally 
accompanied  by  friends  of  the  dead.  Men  could 
be  seen  staggering  over  the  ruins  with  shining 
mahogany  caskets  on  their  shoulders. 

In  the  midst  of  this  scene  of  death  and  deso- 
lation a  relenting  Providence  seems  to  be  exert- 
ing a  subduing  influence.  Six  days  have  elapsed 
since  the  great  disaster,  and  the  temperature  still 
remains  low  and  chilly  in  the  Conemaugh  valley. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  in  the  ordinary  June 
weather  of  this  locality  from  two  to  three  days 
are  sufficient  to  bring  an  unattended  body  to  a 
degree  of  decay  and  putrefaction  that  would 
render  it  almost  impossible  to  prevent  the  spread 
of  disease  throughout  the  valley,  the  inestimable 
benefits  of  this  cool  weather  are  almost  beyond 
appreciation. 

The  first  body  taken  from  the  ruins  was  that  of 
a  boy,  Willie  Davis,  who  was  found  in  the  debris 
near  the  bridge.  He  was  badly  bruised  and 
burned.  The  remains  were  taken  to  the  under- 
taking rooms  at  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

station,  where  they  were  identified.  The  boy's 
mother  has  been  making  a  tour  of  the  different 
morgues  for  the  past  few  days,  and  was  just  going 
through  the  undertaking  rooms  when  she  saw  the 
remains  of  her  boy  being  brought  in.  She  ran 
up  to  the  body  and  demanded  it.  She  seemed  to 
have  lost  her  mind,  and  caused  quite  a  scene  by 
her  actions.  She  said  that  she  had  lost  her  hus- 
band and  six  children  in  the  flood,  and  that  this 
was  the  first  one  of  the  family  that  had  been  re- 
covered. The  bodies  of  a  little  girl  named 
Bracken  and  of  Theresa  and  Katie  Downs  of- 
Clinton  Street  were  taken  out  near  where  the  re- 
mains of  Willie  Davis  were  found. 

Two  hundred  experienced  men  with  dynamite, 
a  portable  crane,  a  locomotive,  and  half  a  dozen 
other  appliances  for  pulling,  hauling,  and  lifting, 
toiled  all  of  Wednesday  at  the  sixty-acre  mass  of 
debris  that  lies  above  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
bridge  at  Johnstown.  "  As  a  result,"  wrote  a 
correspondent,  "  there  is  visible,  just  in  front  of 
the  central  arch,  a  little  patch  of  muddy  water 
about  seventy-five  feet  long  by  thirty  wide.  Two 
smaller  patches  are  in  front  of  the  two  arches  on 
each  side  of  this  one,  but  both  together  would  not 
be  heeded  were  they  not  looked  for  especially. 
Indeed,  the  whole  effect  of  the  work  yet  done 
would  not  be  noticed  by  a  person  who  had  never 
seen  the  wreck  before.  The  solidity  of  the  wreck 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  interlaced  and  locked 
together  exceeds  the  expectations  of  even  those 
who  had  examined  the  wreck  carefully,  and  the 
men  who  thought  that  with  dynamite  the  mass 
could  be  removed  in  a  week,  now  do  not  think  the 
work  can  be  done  in  twice  this  time.  The  work  is  in 
charge  of  Arthur  Kirk,  a  Pittsburg  contractor. 
Dynamite  is  depended  upon  for  loosening  the 
mass,  but  it  has  to  be  used  in  small  charges  for 
fear  of  damaging  the  bridge,  which,  at  this  time, 
would  be  another  disaster  for  the  town.  As  it  is, 
the  south  abutment  has  been  broken  a  little  by 
the  explosions. 

"After  a  charge  of  dynamite  had  shaken  up  a 
portion  of  the  wreck  in  front  of  the  middle  arch, 
men  went  to  work  with  long  poles,  crowbars,  axes, 
saws,  and  spades.  All  the  loose  pieces  that  could 
be  ofot  out  were  thrown  into  the  water  under  the 

o 

bridge,  and  then,  beginning  at  the  edges,  the  bits 
of  wreck  were  pulled,  pushed  and  cut  out, 
and  sent  floating  away.  At  first  the  work  of  an 
hour  was  hardly  perceptible,  but  each  fresh  log  of 
timber  pulled  out  loosened  others  and  made  bet- 
ter progress  possible.  When  the  space  beneath 
the  arch  was  cleared,  and  a  channel  thus  made 
through  which  the  debris  could  be  floated  off,  a 
huge  portable  crane,  built  on  a  flat-car  and  made 
for  raising  locomotives  and  cars,  was  run  upon 
the  bridge  over  the  arch  and  fastened  to  the  track 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD.  , Q 3 

with  heavy  chains.  A  locomotive  was  furnished 
to  pull  the  rope,  instead  of  the  usual  winch  with 
a  crank  handle.  A  rope  from  the  crane  was  fas- 
tened by  chains  or  grapnels  to  a  log,  and  then 
the  locomotive  pulled.  About  once  in  five  times 
the  log  came  out.  Other  times  the  chain  slipped 
or  something  else  made  the  attempt  a  failure. 
Whenever  a  big  stick  came  out  men  with  pikes 
pushed  off  all  the  other  loosened  debris  that  they 
could  get  at.  Other  men  shoveled  off  the  dirt  and 
ashes  which  cover  the  raft  so  thickly  that  it  is 
almost  as  solid  as  the  ground. 

"  ^Vhen  a  ten-foot  square  opening  had  been 
.-^ue  back  on  the  arch,  the  current  could  be  seen 
gushing  up  like  a  great  spring  from  below,  show- 
ing that  there  was  a  large  body  of  it  being  held 
down  there  by  the  weight  of  the  debris.  The 
current  through  the  arch  became  so  strong  that 
the  heaviest  pieces  in  the  wreck  were  carried  off 
readily  once  they  got  within  its  reach.  One  reason 
for  this  is  that  laborers  are  filling  up  the  gaps  on 
the  railroad  embankment  approaching  the  bridge 
in  the  north,  through  which  the  river  had  made 
itself  a  new  bed,  and  the  water  thus  dammed  back 
has  to  go  through  or  under  the  raft  and  out  by 
the  bridge-arches.  This  both  buoys  up  the  whole 
mass  and  provides  a  means  of  carrying  off  the 
wooden  part  of  the  debris  as  fast  as  it  can  be 
loosened. 


3OA  THE 

"  Meanwhile  an  attack  on  the  raft  was  being 
made  through  the  adjoining  arch  in  another  way. 
A  heavy  winch  was  set  up  on  a  small  island  in  the 
river  seventy-five  yards  below  the  bridge,  and 
ropes  run  from  this  were  hitched  to  heavy  timbers 
in  the  raft,  and  then  pulled  out  by  workmen  at  the 
winch.  A  beginning  for  a  second  opening  in  the 
raft  was  made  in  this  way.  One  man  had  some 
bones  broken  and  was  otherwise  hurt  by  the  slip- 
ping of  the  handle  while  he  was  at  work  at  the 
winch  this  afternoon.  The  whole  work  is  danger- 
ous for  the  men.  There  is  twenty  feet  of  swift 
water  for  them  to  slip  into,  and  timbers  weighing 
tons  are  swinging  about  in  unexpected  directions 
to  crush  them. 

"  So  far  it  is  not  known  that  any  bodies  have 
been  brought  out  of  the  debris  by  this  work  of 
removal,  though  many  logs  have  been  loosened 
and  sent  off  down  the  river  beneath  the  water 
without  being  seen.  There  will  probably  be  more 
bodies  back  toward  the  centre  of  the  raft  than  at 
the  bridge,  for  of  those  that  came  there  many 
were  swept  over  the  top.  Some  went  over  the 
arches  and  a  great  many  were  rescued  from  the 
bridge  and  shore.  People  are  satisfied  now  that 
dynamite  is  the  only  thing  that  can  possibly  re- 
move the  wreck  and  that  as  it  is  being  used  it  is 
not  likely  to  mangle  bodies  that  may  be  in  the 
debris  any  more  than  would  any  other  means  of 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

removing  it.  There  are  no  more  protests  heard 
against  its  use." 

Bodies  continue  to  be  dug  out  of  the  wreck  in 
the  central  portion  all  day.  A  dozen  or  so  had 
been  recovered  up  to  nightfall,  all  hideously 
burned  and  mangled.  In  spite  of  all  the  water 
that  has  been  thrown  upon  it  by  fire  engines  and 
all  the  rain  that  has  fallen,  the  debris  is  still 
smouldering  in  many  spots. 

Work  was  be^un  in  dead  earnest  on  Wednes- 

o 

day  on  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  buildings.  The 
Cambria  people  gave  out  the  absurd  statement 
that  their  loss  will  not  exceed  $100,000.  It 
will  certainly  take  this  amount  to  clean  the  works 
of  the  debris,  to  say  nothing  of  repairing  them. 
The  buildings  are  nearly  a  score  in  number,  some 
of  them  of  enormous  size,  and  they  extend  along 
the  Conemaugh  River  for  half  a  mile,  over  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  in  width.  Their  lonely  chim- 
neys, stretching  high  out  of  the  slate  roofs  above 
the  brick  walls,  make  them  look  not  unlike  a  man- 
of-war  of  tremendous  size.  The  buildings  on  the 
western  end  of  the  row  are  not  damaged  a  great 

o  o 

deal,  though  the  torrent  rolled  through  them, 
turning  the  machinery  topsy-turvy  ;  but  the  build- 
ings on  the  eastern  end,  which  received  the  full 
force  of  the  flood,  fared  badly.  The  eastern  ends 
are  utterly  gone,  the  roofs  bent  over  and  smashed 
in,  the  chimneys  flattened,  the  walls  cracked  and 
broken,  and,  in  some  cases,  smashed  entirely. 


306  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Most  of  the  buildings  are  filled  with  drift.  The 
workmen,  who  have  clambered  over  the  piles  of 
logs  and  heavy  drift  washed  in  front  of  the  build- 
ings and  inside,  say  that  they  cte  not  believe  that 
the  machinery  in  the  mills  is  damaged  very  much, 
and  that  the  main  loss  will  fall  on  the  mills  them- 
selves. Half  a  million  may  cover  the  loss  of  the 
Cambria  people,  but  this  is  a  rather  low  estimate. 
They  have  nine  hundred  men  twork  getting  things 
in  shape,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  have  had  to 
go  to  work  illustrates  the  force  with  which  the 
flood  acted.  The  trees  jammed  in  and  before  the 
buildings  were  so  big  and  so  solidly  wedged  in 
their  places  that  no  force  of  men  could  pull  them 
out,  and  temporary  railroad  tracks  were  built  up 
to  the  mass  of  debris.  Then  one  of  the  engines 
backed  down  from  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
yards,  and  the  workmen,  by  persistent  effort,  man- 
aged to  get  big  chains  around  parts  of  the  drift. 
These  chains  were  attached  to  the  engine,  which 
rolled  off  puffing  mightily,  and  in  this  way  the 
mass  of  drift  was  pulled  apart.  Then  the  laborers 
gathered  up  the  loosened  material,  heaped  it  in 
piles  a  distance  from  the  buildings,  and  burned 
them.  Sometimes  two  engines  had  to  be  attached 
to  some  of  the  trees  to  pull  them  out,  and  there 
are  many  trees  which  cannot  be  extricated  in  this 
manner.  They  will  have  to  be  sawed  into  parts, 
and  these  parts  lugged  away  by  the  engines. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

UPON  a  pretty  little  plateau  two  hundred 
feet  above  the  waters  of  Stony  Creek,  and 
directly  in  front  of  a  slender  foot-bridge  which 
leads  into  Kernsville,  stands  a  group  of  tents 
which  represents  the  first  effort  of  any  national 
organization  to  give  material  sanitary  aid  to  the 
unhappy  survivors  of  Johnstown. 

It  is  the  camp  of  the  American  National  Asso- 
ciation of  the  Red  Cross,  and  is  under  the  direc- 
tion of  that  noble  woman,  Miss  Clara  Barton  of 
Washington,  the  President  of  the  organization  in 
this  country.  The  camp  is  not  more  than  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  from  the  scene  of  operations  in  this 
place,  and,  should  pestilence  attend  upon  the 
horrors  of  the  flood,  this  assembly  of  trained  nurses 
and  veteran  physicians  will  be  known  all  over  the 
land.  That  an  epidemic  of  some  sort  will  come, 
there  seems  to  be  no  question.  The  only  thing 
which  can  avert  it  is  a  succession  of  cool  days,  a 
possibility  which  is  very  remote. 

Miss  Barton,  as  soon  as  she  heard  of  the  catas- 
18  309 


3 IO  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

trophe,  started  preparations  for  opening  head- 
quarters in  this  place.  By  Saturday  morning  she 
had  secured  a  staff,  tents,  supplies,  and  all  the 
necessary  appurtenances  of  her  work,  and  at  once 
started  on  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Road.  She 
arrived  here  on  Tuesday  morning,  and  pitched 
her  tents  near  Stony  Creek.  This  was,  however, 
a  temporary  choice,  for  soon  she  removed  her 
camp  to  the  plateau  upon  which  it  will  remain 
until  all  need  for  Miss  Barton  will  have  passed. 
With  her  came  Dr.  John  B.  Hubbell,  field  agent; 
Miss  M.  L.  White,  stenographer ;  Gustave  Ang- 
erstein,  messenger,  and  a  corps  of  fifteen  physi- 
cians and  four  trained  female  nurses,  under  the 
direction  of  Dr.  O'Neill,  of  Philadelphia. 

Upon  their  arrival  they  at  once  established 
quartermaster  and  kitchen  departments,  and  in 
less  than  three  hours  these  divisions  were  fully 
equipped  for  work.  Then  when  the  camp  was 
formally  opened  on  the  plateau  there  were  one 
large  hospital  tent,  capable  of  accommodating 
forty  persons,  four  smaller  tents  to  give  aid  to 
twenty  persons  each,  and  four  still  smaller  ones 
which  will  hold  ten  patients  each.  Then  Miss 
Barton  organized  a  house-to-house  canvass  by 
her  corps  of  doctors,  and  began  to  show  results 
almost  immediately. 

The  first  part  of  the  district  visited  was  Kerns- 
ville.  There  great  want  and  much  suffering  were 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  31  1 

discovered  and  promptly  relieved.  Miss  Barton 
says  that  in  most  of  the  houses  which  were  visited 
were  several  persons  suffering  from  nervous  pros- 
tration in  the  most  aggravated  form,  many  cases 
of  temporary  insanity  being  discovered,  which,  if 
neglected,  would  assume  chronic  conditions. 
There  were  a  large  number  of  persons,  too,  who 
were  bruised  by  their  battling  on  the  borders  of 
the  flood,  and  were  either  ignorant  or  too  broken- 
spirited  to  endeavor  to  aid  themselves  in  any  par- 
ticular. The  majority  of  these  were  not  suffi- 
ciently seriously  hurt  to  require  removal  from  their 
homes  to  the  camp,  and  so  were  given  medicines 
and  practical,  intelligent  advice  how  to  use  them. 
There  were  fifteen  persons,  however,  who  were 
removed  from  Kernsville  and  from  a  district 
known  as  the  Brewery,  on  the  extreme  east  of 
Johnstown.  Three  of  the  number  were  women 
and  were  sadly  bruised.  One  man,  Caspar 
Walthaman,  a  German  operative  at  the  Cambria 
Iron  Works,  was  the  most  interesting  of  all.  He 

o 

lived  in  a  little  frame  house  within  fifty  yards  of 
the  brewery.  When  the  flood  came  his  house  was 
lifted  from  its  foundations  and  was  tossed  about 
like  a  feather  in  a  gale,  until  it  reached  a  spot 
about  on  a  line  with  Washington  Street.  There 

o 

the  man's  life  was  saved  by  a  great  drift,  which 
completely  surrounded  the  house,  and  which 
forced  the  structure  against  the  Prospect  Hill 


•>  !  2  JOHNS!  O  WN  FL  OOD. 

shore,  where  the  shock  wrecked  it.  Walthaman 
was  sent  flying  through  the  air,  and  landed  on  his 
right  side  on  the  water-soaked  turf.  Fortunately 
the  turf  was  soft  and  springy  with  the  moisture, 
and  Walthaman  had  enough  consciousness  left  to 
crawl  up  the  hillside,  and  then  sank  into  uncon- 
sciousness. 

At  ten  o'clock  Saturday  morning  some  friends 
found  him.  He  was  taken  to  their  home  in  Kerns- 
ville.  He  was  scarcely  conscious  when  found,  and 
before  he  had  been  in  a  place  of  safety  an  hour  he 
had  lost  his  mind,  the  reaction  was  so  great.  His 
hair  had  turned  quite  white,  and  the  places  where 
before  the  disaster  his  hair  had  been  most  abund- 
ant, on  the  sides  of  his  head,  were  completely  de- 
nuded of  it.  His  scalp  was  as  smooth  as  an 
apple-cheek.  The  physicians  who  removed  him 
to  the  Red  Cross  Hospital  declared  the  case  as 
the  most  extraordinary  one  resulting  from  fright 
that  had  ever  come  under  their  observation.  Miss 
Barton  declares  her  belief  that  not  one  of  the  per- 
sons who  are  now  under  treatment  is  seriously  in- 
jured, and  is  confident  they  will  recover  in  a  few 
days. 

Her  staff  was  reinforced  by  Mrs.  and  Dr.  Gard- 
ner, of  Bedford,  who,  during  the  last  great  West- 
ern floods,  rendered  most  excellent  assistance  to 
the  sufferers.  Both  are  members  of  the  Relief 
Association.  The  squad  of  physicians  and  nurses 


7  'HE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  <,  {  * 

was  further  added  to  by  more  from  Philadel- 
phia, and  then  Miss  Barton  thought  she  was  pre- 
pared to  cope  with  anything  in  the  way  of  sick- 
ness which  might  arise. 

The  appearance  of  the  tents  and  the  surround- 
ings are  exceedingly  inviting.  Everything  is  ex- 
quisitely neat,  the  boards  of  the  tent-floors  being 
almost  as  white  as  the  snowy  linen  of  the  cots. 
This  contrast  to  the  horrible  filth  of  the  town, 
with  its  fearful  stenches  and  its  dead-paved  streets, 
is  so  invigorating  that  it  has  become  a  place  of  re- 
fuge to  all  who  are  compelled  to  remain  here. 

The  hospital  is  an  old  rink  on  the  Bedford  pike, 
which  has  been  transformed  into  an  inviting  re- 
treat. Upon  entering  the  door  the  visitor  finds 
himself  in  a  small  ante-room,  to  one  side  of  which 
is  attached  the  general  consulting-room.  On  the 
other  side,  opposite  the  hall,  is  the  apothecary's 
department,  where  the  prescriptions  are  filled  as 
carefully  as  they  would  be  at  a  first-class  drug- 
gist's. In  the  rear  of  the  medical  department  and 
of  the  general  consultation-room  are  the  wards. 
There  are  two  of  them — one  for  males  and  the 
other  for  females.  A  long,  high,  heavy  curtain 
divides  the  wards,  and  insures  as  much  privacy  as 
the  most  modest  person  would  wish.  Around  the 
walls  in  both  wards  are  ranged  the  regulation 
hospital  beds,  with  plenty  of  clean  and  comfort- 
able bed-clothes. 


->  y  *  THE  JOHNSTO IVN  FL OOD. 

Patients  in  the  hospital  said  they  couldn't  be 
better  treated  if  they  were  paying  the  physician 
for  their  attendance.  The  trained  nurses  of  the 
Red  Cross  Society  carefully  look  after  the  wants 
of  the  sick  and  injured,  and  see  that  they  get 
everything  they  wish.  People  who  have  an  ab- 
horrence of  going  into  these  hospitals  need  have 
no  fear  that  they  will  not  be  well  treated. 

The  orphans  of  the  flood — sadly  few  there  are 
of  them,  for  it  was  the  children  that  usually  went 
down  first,  not  the  parents — are  looked  after  by 
the  Pennsylvania  Children's  Aid  Society,  which 
has  transferred  its  headquarters  for  the  time  being 
from  Philadelphia  to  this  city.  There  was  a  thriv- 
ing branch  of  this  society  heVe  before  the  flood, 
but  of  all  its  officers  and  executive  force  two  only 
are  alive.  Fearing  such  might  be  the  situation, 
the  general  officers  of  the  society  sent  out  on  the 
first  available  train  Miss  H.  E.  Hancock,  one  of 
the  directors,  and  Miss  H.  W.  Hinckley,  the  Secre- 
tary. They  arrived  on  Thursday  morning,  and 
within  thirty  minutes  had  an  office  open  in  a  little 
cottage  just  above  the  water-line  in  the  upper  part 
of  the  city.  Business  was  ready  as  soon  as  the 
office,  and  there  were  about  fifty  children  looked 
after  before  evening.  In  most  cases  these  were 
children  with  relatives  or  friends  in  or  near  Johns- 
town, and  the  society's  work  has  been  to  identify 
them  and  restore  them  to  their  friends. 


THE  J OHKS TO  WN  FLOOD.  ^  j  e 

As  soon  as  the  society  opened  its  office  all  cases 
in  which  children  were  involved  were  sent  at  once 
to  them,  and  their  efforts  have  been  of  great  ben- 
efit in  systematizing-  the  care  of  the  children  who 
are  left  homeless.  Besides  this,  there  are  many 
orphans  who  have  been  living  in  the  families  of 
neighbors  since  the  flood,  but  for  whom  perma- 
nent homes  must  be  found.  One  family  has  cared 
for  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  children  saved 
from  the  flood,  and  nearly  as  many  are  staying 
with  other  families.  There  will  be  no  difficulty 
about  providing  for  these  little  ones.  The  society 
already  has  offers  for  the  taking  of  as  many  as  are 
likely  to  be  in  need  of  a  home. 

The  Rev.  Morgan  Dix,  on  behalf  of  the  Leake 
and  Watts  Orphan  Home  in  New  York,  has  tele- 
graphed an  offer  to  care  for  seventy-five  orphans. 
Pittsburg  is  proving  itself  generous  in  this  as  in 
all  other  matters  relating  to  the  flood,  and  other 
places  all  over  the  country  are  telegraphing  offers 
of  homes  for  the  homeless.  Superintendent  Pier- 
son,  of  the  Indianapolis  Natural  Gas  Company, 
has  asked  for  two  ;  Cleveland  wants  some ;  Al- 
toona  would  like  a  few ;  Apollo,  Pa.,  has  vacan- 
cies the  orphans  can  fill,  and  scores  of  other  small 
places  are  sending  in  similar  offers  and  requests. 
A  queer  thing  is  that  many  of  thu?  officers  are  re- 
stricted by  curious  provisions  as  to  the  religious 
belief  of  the  orphans.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Griffith,  for 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

instance,  of  Philadelphia,  says  that  the  Angora 
(Pa.)  Home  would  like  some  orphans,  "  especially 
Baptist  ones,"  and  Father  Field,  of  Philadelphia, 
offers  to  look  after  a  few  Episcopal  waifs. 

The  work  of  the  society  here  has  been  greatly 
assisted  by  the  fact  that  Miss  Maggie  Brooks,  for- 
merly Secretary  of  the  local  society  here,  but 
living  in  Philadelphia  at  the  time  of  the  flood,  has 
come  here  to  assist  the  o-eneral  officers.  Her  ac- 

^B 

quaintance  with  the  town  is  invaluable. 

Johnstown  is  generous  in  its  misery.  What- 
ever it  has  left  it  gives  freely  to  the  strangers  who 
have  come  here.  It  is  not  much,  but  it  shows  a 
good  spirit.  There  are  means  by  which  Johns- 
town people  might  reap  a  rich  harvest  by  taking 
advantage  of  the  necessities  of  strangers.  It  is 

O  *^ 

necessary,  for  instance,  to  use  boats  in  getting 
about  the  place,  and  men  in  light  skiffs  are  poling 
about  the  streets  all  day  taking  passengers  from 
place  to  place.  Their  services  are  free.  They 
not  only  do  not,  but  will  not  accept  any  fee.  J. 

D.  Haws  &  Son  own  lar^e  brick-kilns  near   the 

• 
bridge.     The  newspaper  men  have  possession  of 

one  of  the  firm's  buildings  and  one  of  the  firm 
spends  most  of  his  time  in  running  about  trying  to 
make  the  men  comfortable.  A  room  in  one  of 
the  firm's  barns  filled  with  straw  has  been  set 
apart  solely  for  the  newspaper  men,  who  sleep 
there  wrapped  in  blankets  as  comfortably  as  in 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  ^17 

beds.  There  is  no  charge  for  this,  although  those 
who  have  tried  one  night  on  the  floors,  sand-piles, 
and  other  usual  dormitories  of  the  place,  would 
willingly  pay  high  for  the  use  of  the  straw.  Food 
for  the  newspaper  and  telegraph  workers  has  been 
hard  to  get  except  in  crude  form.  Canned  corned 
beef,  eaten  with  a  stick  for  a  fork,  and  dry  crackers 
were  the  staples  up  to  Tuesday,  when  a  house  up 
the  hill  was  discovered  were  anybody  who  came 
was  welcome  to  the  best  the  house  afforded.  There 
was  no  sugar  for  the  coffee,  no  vinegar  for  the 
lettuce,  and  the  apple  butter  ran  out  before  the 
siege  was  raised,  but  the  defect  was  in  the  circum- 
stances of  Johnstown,  and  not  in  the  will  of  the 
family. 

"  How  much?"  was  asked  at  the  end  of  the 
meal. 

They  were  poor  people.  The  man  probably 
earns  a  dollar  a  day. 

"Oh!"  replied  the  woman,  who  was  herself  cook, 
waiter,  and  lady  of  the  house,  "  we  don't  charge 
anything  in  times  like  these.  You  see,  I  went  out 
and  spent  ten  dollars  for  groceries  at  a  place 
that  wasn't  washed  away  right  after  the  flood,  and 
we've  been  living  on  that  ever  since.  Of  course 
we  don't  ask  any  of  the  relief,  not  being  washed 
out.  You  men  are  welcome  to  all  I  can  give." 

She  had  seen  the  last  of  her  ten  dollars  worth  of 
provisions  gobbled  up  without  a  murmur,  and  yet 


^  j  £}  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

didn't  "  charge  anything- in  times  like  these."  Her 
scruples  did  not,  however,  extend  so  far  as  to  re- 
fusing tenders  of  coin,  inasmuch  as  without  it  her 
larder  would  stay  empty.  She  filled  it  up  last 
night,  and  the  news  of  the  place  having  spread, 
she  has  been  getting  a  continual  meal  from  five 
in  the  morning  until  late  at  night.  Although  she 
makes  no  charge,  her  income  would  make  a  regu- 
lar restaurant  keeper  dizzy. 

So  far  as  the  Signal  Service  is  concerned,  the 
amount  of  rainfall  in  the  region  drained  by  the 
Conemaugh  River  cannot  be  ascertained.  Mrs. 
H.  M.  Ogle,  who  had  been  the  Signal  Service 
representative  in  Johnstown  for  several  years  and 
also  manager  of  the  Western  Union  office  there, 
telegraphed  at  eight  o'clock  Friday  morning  to 
Pittsburg  that  the  river  marked  fourteen  feet, 
rising ;  a  rise  of  thirteen  feet  in  twenty-four  hours. 
At  eleven  o'clock  she  wired  :  "  River  twenty  feet 
and  rising,  higher  than  ever  before ;  water  in  first 
floor.  Have  moved  to  second.  River  o-auofes 

o         o 

carried  away.  Rainfall,  two  and  three-tenth 
inches."  At  twenty-seven  minutes  to  one  p.  M. 
Mrs.  Ogle  wired:  "At  this  hour  north  wind  ;  very 
cloudy;  water  still  rising." 

Nothing  more  was  heard  from  her  by  the  bu- 
reau, but  at  the  Western  Union  office  at  Pittsburg 
later  in  the  afternoon  she  commenced  to  tell  an 
operator  that  the  dam  had  broken,  that  a  flood 


/  UK  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  «  }  g 

was  coming-,  and  before  she  had  finished  the  con- 
versation a  singular  click  of  the  instrument  an- 
nounced the  breaking  of  the  current.  A  moment 
afterward  the  current  of  her  life  was  broken  for- 
ever. 

Sergeant  Stewart,  in  charge  of  the  Pittsburg 
bureau,  says  that  the  fall  of  water  on  the  Cone- 
maugh  shed  at  Johnstown  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Hood  was  probably  two  and  five-tenth  inches.  He 
believes  it  was  much  heavier  in  the  mountains. 
The  country  drained  by  the  little  Conemaughand 
Stony  Creek  covers  an  area  of  about  one  hundred 
square  miles.  The  bureau,  figuring  on  this  basis  * 
and  two  and  five-tenth  inches  of  rainfall,  finds  that 
four  hundred  and  sixty-four  million  six  hundred 
and  forty  thousand  cubic  feet  of  water  was  pre- 
cipitated toward  Johnstown  in  its  last  hours.  This 
is  independent  of  the  great  volume  of  water  in 
the  lake,  which  was  not  less  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  million  cubic  feet. 

It  is  therefore  easily  seen  that  there  was  ample 
water  te  cover  the  Conemaugh  Valley  to  the  depth 
of  from  ten  to  twenty-five  feet.  Such  a  volume 
of  water  was  never  known  to  fall  in  that  country 
in  the  same  time. 

Colonel  T.  P.  Roberts,  a  leading  engineer,  esti- 
mates that  the  lake  drained  twenty-five  square 
miles,  and  gives  some  interesting  data  on  the 
probable  amount  of  water  in  contained.  He 


„  2  0  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

says:  "The  dam,  as  I  understand,  was  from  hill 
to  hill,  about  one  thousand  feet  long  and  about 
eighty-five  feet  high  at  the  highest  point.  The 
pond  covered  above  seven  hundred  acres,  at  least 
for  the  present  I  will  assume  that  to  be  the  case. 
We  are  told  also  that  there  was  a  waste-weir  at 
one  end  seventy-five  feet  wide  and  ten  feet  below 
the  comb  or  top  of  the  dam.  Now  we  are  told 
that  with  this  weir  open  and  discharging  freely  to 
the  utmost  of  its  capacity,  nevertheless  the  pond 
or  lake  rose  ten  inches  per  hour  until  finally  it 
overflowed  the  top,  and,  as  I  understand,  the  dam 
broke  by  being  eaten  away  at  the  top. 

"Thus  we  have  the  elements  for  very  simple 
calculation  as  to  the  amount  of  water  precipitated 
by  the  flood,  provided  these  premises  are  accurate. 
To  raise  seven  hundred  acres  of  water  to  a 
height  of  ten  feet  would  require  about  three  hun- 
dred million  cubic  feet  of  water,  and  while  this 
was  rising  the  waste-weir  would  discharge  an 
enormous  volume — it  would  be  difficult  to  say 
just  how  much  without  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
shape  of  its  side-walls,  approaches,  and  outlets — 
but  if  the  rise  required  ten  hours  the  waste-weir 
might  have  discharged  perhaps  ninety  million 
cubic  feet'  We  would  then  have  a  total  of  flood 
water  of  three  hundred  and  ninety  million  cubic 
feet.  This  would  indicate  a  rainfall  of  about 
eight  inches  over  the  twenty-five  square  miles. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  -,2r 

As  tliat  much  does  not  appear  to  have  fallen  at 
the  hotel  and  dam  it  is  more  than  likely  that  even 
more  than  eight  inches  was  precipitated  in  places 
farther  up.  These  figures  I  hold  tentatively,  but 
I  am  much  inclined  to  believe  that  there  was  a 
cloud  burst." 

Of  course,  the  Johnstown  disaster,  great  as  it 
was,  was  by  no  means  the  greatest  flood  in  his- 
tory, since  Noah's  Deluge.  The  greatest  of 
modern  floods  was  that  which  resulted  from  the 
overflow  of  the  great  Houng-Ho,  or  Yellow  River, 
in  1887.  This  river,  which  has  earned  the  title  of 
"China's  Sorrow,"  has  always 'been  the  cause  of 
great  anxiety  to  the  Chinese  Government  and  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  country  through  which  it 
iows.  It  is  guarded  with  the  utmost  care  at  great 
expense,  and  annually  vast  sums  are  spent  in 
repairs  of  its  banks.  In  October,  1887,  a  number 
of  serious  breaches  occurred  in  the  river's  banks 
about  three  hundred  miles  from  the  coast.  As  a 
result  the  river  deserted  its  natural  bed  and  spread 
over  a  thickly-populated  plain,  forcing  for  itself 
finally  an  entire  new  road  to  the  sea.  Four  or 
five  times  in  two  thousand  years  the  great  river 
had  changed  its  bed,  and  each  time  the  change 
had  entailed  great  loss  of  life  and  property. 

In  1852  it  burst  through  its  banks  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  from  the  sea  and  cut  a  new  bed 
through  the  northern  part  of  Shantung  into  the 


322  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  O OD. 

Gulf  of  Pechili.  The  isolation  in  which  foreigners 
lived  at  that  time  in  China  prevented  their  obtain- 
ing any  information  as  to  the  calamitous  results 
of  this  change,  but  in  1887  many  of  the  barriers 
against  foreigners  had  been  removed  and  a  gen- 
eral idea  of  the  character  of  the  inundation  was 
easily  obtainable. 

For  several  weeks  preceding  the  actual  over- 
flow of  its  banks  the  Hoan^-Ho  had  been  swollen 

O 

from  its  tributaries.  It  had  been  unusually  wet 
and  stormy  in  northwest  China,  and  all  the  small 
streams  were  full  and  overflowing.  The  first 
break  occurred  in  the  province  of  Honan,  of  which 
the  capital  is  Kaifeng,  and  the  city  next  in  import- 
ance is  Ching  or  Cheng  Chou.  The  latter  is  forty 
miles  west  of  Kaifeng  and  a  short  distance  above 
a  bend  in  the  Hoang-Ho.  At  this  bend  the  stream 
is  borne  violently  against  the  south  shore.  For 
ten  days  a  continuous  rain  had  been  soaking  the 
embankments,  and  a  strong  wind  increased  the 
already  great  force  of  the  current.  Finally  a 
breach  was  made.  At  first  it  extended  only  fora 
hundred  yards.  The  guards  made  frantic  efforts 
to  close  the  gap,  and  were  assisted  by  the  fright- 
ened people  in  the  vicinity.  But  the  beach  grew 
rapidly  to  a  width  of  twelve  hundred  yards,  and 
through  this  the  river  rushed  with  awful  force. 
Leaping  over  the  plain  with  incredible  velocity, 
the  water  merged  into  a  small  stream  called  the 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD.  «,  2  3 

Lu-chia.  Down  the  valley  of  the  Lu-chia  the  tor- 
rent poured  in  an  easterly  direction,  overwhelming 
everything  in  its  path. 

Twenty  miles  from  ChengChou.it  encountered 
Chungmou,  a  walled  city  of  the  third  rank.  Its 
thousands  of  inhabitants  were  attending  to  their 
usual  pursuits.  There  was  no  telegraph  to  warn 
them,  and  the  first  intimation  of  disaster  came  with 
the  muddy  torrent  that  rolled  down  upon  them. 
Within  a  short  time  only  the  tops  of  the  high  walls 
marked  where  a  flourishing  city  had  been.  Three 
hundred  villages  in  the  district  disappeared  utterly, 
and  the  lands  about  three  hundred  other  villages 
were  inundated. 

The  flood  turned  south  from  Chungmou,  still 
keeping  to  the  course  of  the  Lu-chia,  and  stretched 
out  in  width  for  thirty  miles.  This  vast  body  of 
water  was  from  ten  to  twenty  feet  deep.  Several 
miles  south  of  Kaifeng  the  flood  struck  a  large 
river  which  there  joins  the  Lu-chia.  The  result 
was  that  the  flood  rose  to  a  still  greater  height, 
and,  pouring  into  a  low-lying  and  very  fertile 
plain  which  was  densely  populated,  submerged 
upward  of  one  thousand  five  hundred  villages. 

Not  far  beyond  this  locality  the  flood  passed 
into  the  province  of  Anhui,  where  it  spread  very 
widely.  The  actual  loss  of  life  could  not  "be  com- 
puted accurately,  but  the  lowest  intelligent  esti- 
mate placed  it  at  one  million  five  hundred  thou- 


324  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

sand,  and  one  authority  fixed  it  at  seven  million. 
Two  million  people  were  rendered  destitute  by 
the  flood,  and  the  suffering  that  resulted  was 
frightful.  Four  months  later  the  inundated  prov- 
inces were  still  under  the  muddy  waters.  The 
government  officials  who  were  on  guard  when  the 
Hoang-Ho  broke  its  banks  were  condemned  to 
severe  punishment,  and  were  placed  in  the  pillory 
in  spite  of  their  pleadings  that  they  had  done  their 
best  to  avert  the  disaster. 

The  inundation  which  may  be  classed  as  the 
second  greatest  in  modern  history  occurred  in 
Holland  in  1530.  There  have  been  many  floods 
in  Holland,  nearly  all  due  to  the  failure  of  the 
dikes  which  form  the  only  barrier  between  it  and 
the  sea.  In  1530  there  was  a  general  failure  of 
the  dikes,  and  the  sea  poured  in  upon  the  low 
lands.  The  people  were  as  unprepared  as  were 
the  victims  of  the  Johnstown  disaster.  Good  au- 
thorities place  the  number  of  human  beings  that 
perished  in  this  flood  at  about  four  hundred  thou- 
sand, and  the  destruction  of  property  was  in  pro- 
portion. 

In  April,  1421,  the  River  Meuse  broke  in  the 
dikes  at  Dort,  or  Dordrecht,  an  ancient  town  in 
the  peninsula  of  South  Holland,  situated  on  an 
island.  Ten  thousand  persons  perished  there  and 
more  than  one  hundred  thousand  in  the  vicinity. 
In  January,  1861,  there  was  a  disastrous  flood  in 


1 'JIE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Holland,  the  area  sweeping  over  forty  thousand 
acres,  and  leaving  thirty  thousand  villages  desti- 
tute, and  again  in  1876  severe  losses  resulted  from 
inundations  in  this  country. 

The  first  flood  in  Europe  of  which  history  gives 
any  authentic  account  occurred  in  Lincolnshire, 
England,  A.  D.  245,  when  the  sea  passed  over 
many  thousands  of  acres.  In  the  year  353  a  flood 
in  Cheshire  destroyed  three  thousand  human  lives 
and  many  cattle.  Four  hundred  families  were 
drowned  in  Glasgow  by  an  overflow  of  the  Clyde 
in  758.  A  number  of  English  seaport  towns  were 
destroyed  by  an  inundation  in  1014.  In  1483  a 
terrible  overflow  of  the  Severn,  which  came  at 
night  and  lasted  for  ten  days,  covered  the  tops  of 
mountains.  Men,  women,  and  children  were  car- 
ried from  their  beds  and  drowned.  The  waters 
settled  on  the  lands  and  were  called  for  one  hun- 
dred years  after  the  Great  Waters. 

A  flood  in  Catalonia,  a  province  of  Spain,  oc- 
curred in  1617,  and  fifty  thousand  persons  lost 
their  lives.  One  of  the  most  curious  inundations 
in  history,  and  one  that  was  looked  upon  at  the 
time  as  a  miracle,  occurred  in  Yorkshire,  England, 
in  1686.  A  large  rock  was  split  assunder  by 
some  hidden  force,  and  water  spouted  out,  the 
stream  reaching  as  high  as  a  church  steeple.  In 
1771  another  flood,  known  as  the  Ripon  flood, 
occurred  in  the  same  province. 


328  THE  yOHNSTOWH  FLOOD. 

In  September,  1687,  mountain  torrents  inun- 
dated Navarre,  and  two  thousand  persons  were 
drowned.  Twice,  in  1787  and  in  1802,  the  Irish 
Liffey  overran  its  banks  and  caused  great  damsge. 
A  reservoir  in  Lurca,  a  city  of  Spain,  burst  in 
1 802, 'in  much  the  same  way  as  did  the  dam  at 
Johnstown,  and  as  a  result  one  thousand  persons 
perished.  Twenty-four  villages  near  Presburg, 
and  nearly  all  their  inhabitants,  were  swept  away 
in  April,  1811,  by  an  overflow  of  the  Danube. 
Two  years  later  large  provinces  in  Austria  and 
Poland  were  flooded,  and  many  lives  were  lost. 
In  the  same  year  a  force  of  two  thousand  Turkish 
soldiers,  who  were  stationed  on  a  small  island 
near  Widdin,  were  surprised  by  a  sudden  over- 
flow of  the  Danube  and  all  were  drowned.  There 
were  two  more  floods  in  this  year,  one  in  Silesia, 
where  six  thousand  persons  perished,  and  the 
French  army  met  such  losses  and  privations  that 
its  ruin  was  accelerated ;  and  another  in  Poland, 
where  four  thousand  persons  were  supposed  to 
have  been  drowned.  In  1816  the  melting  of  the 
snow  on  the  mountains  surrounding  Strabane, 
Ireland,  caused  destructive  floods,  and  the  over- 
flow of  the  Vistula  in  Germany  laid  many  villages 
under  water.  Floods  that  occasioned  great  suf- 
fering occurred  in  1829,  when  severe  rains  caused 
the  Spey  and  Findhorn  to  rise  fifty  feet  above 
their  ordinary  level.  The  following  year  the 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Danube  a^ain  ouerflowed  its  banks  and  inundated 

fj 

the  houses  of  fifty  thousand  inhabitants  of  Vienna. 
The  Saone  overflowed  in  1840,  and  poured  its 
turbulent  waters  iuto  the  Rhine,  causing  a  flood 
which  covered  sixty  thousand  acres.  Lyons  was 
flooded,  one  hundred  houses  were  swept  away  at 
Avignon,  two  hundred  and  eighteen  at  La  Guil- 
lotiere,  and  three  hundred  at  Vaise,  Marseilles, 
and  Nimes.  Another  great  flood,  entailing  much 
suffering,  occurred  in  the  south  of  France  in 
1856. 

A  flood  in  Mill  River  valley  in  1874  was  caused 
by  the  bursting  of  a  badly  constructed  dam.  The 
waters  poured  down  upon  the  villages  in  the  val- 
ley much  as  at  Johnstown,  but  the  people  received 
warning  in  time,  and  the  torrent  was  not  so  swift. 
Several  villages  were  destroyed  and  one  hundred 
and  forty-four  persons  drowned.  The  rising  of 
the  Garonne  in  1875  caused  the  death  of  one 
thousand  persons  near  Toulouse,  and  twenty 
thousand  persons  were  made  homeless  in  India 
by  floods  in  the  same  year.  In  1882  heavy  floods 
destroyeda  largeamount  of  property  and  drowned 
many  persons  in  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  valleys. 

The  awful  disaster  in  the  Conemaugh  Valley 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  are  many 
similar  dams  throughout  the  United  States. 
Though  few  of  these  overhang  a  narrow  gorge 
like  the  one  in  which  the  borough  of  Johnstown 


3 30  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

reposed,  there  is  no  question  that  several  of  the 
dams  now  deemed  safe  would,  if  broken  down  by 
a  sudden  freshet,  sweep  down  upon  peaceful  ham- 
lets, cause  immense  damage  to  property  and  loss 
of  life.  The  lesson  taught  by  the  awful  scenes  at 
Johnstown  should  not  go  unheeded. 

Croton  Lake  Dam  was  first  built  with  ninety 
feet  of  masonry  overfall,  the  rest  being  earth  em- 
bankment. On  January  7th,  1841,  a  freshet  car- 
ried away  this  earth  embankment,  and  when  re- 
built the  overfall  of  the  dam  was  made  two  hund- 
red and  seventy  feet  long.  The  foundation  is  two 
lines  of  cribs,  filled  with  dry  stone,  and  ten  feet 
of  concrete  between.  Upon  this  broken  range 
stone  masonry  was  laid,  the  down-stream  side 
being  curved  and  faced  with  granite,  the  whole 
being  backed  with  a  packing  of  earth.  The  dam 
is  forty  feet  high,  its  top  is  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
six  feet  above  tidewater,  and  it  controls  a  reser- 
voir area  of  four  hundred  acres  and  five  hundred 
million  gallons  of  water.  The  Boyd's  Corner 
Dam  holds  two  million  seven  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  thousand  gallons,  and  was  built  during  the 
years  1866  and  1872.  It  stands  twenty-three 
miles  from  Croton  dam,  and  has  cut-stone  faces 
filled  between  with  concrete.  The  extreme  height 
is  seventy-eight  feet,  and  it  is  six  hundred  and 
seventy  feet  long.  Although  this  dam  holds  a 
body  of  water  five  times  greater  than  that  at 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FI.  OOD.  *>  -,  l 

Croton  Lake,  it  is  claimed  by  engineers  that 
should  it  give  way  the  deluge  of  water  which 
would  follow  would  cause  very  little  loss  of  life 
and  only  destroy  farming  lands,  as  below  it  the 
countrv  is  comparatively  level  and  open.  Middle 
Branch  Dam  holds  four  billion  four  hundred 
.thousand  gallons,  and  was  built  during  1874  and 
1878.  It  is  composed  of  earth,  with  a  centre  of 
rubble  masonry  carried  down  to  the  rock  bottom. 
It  is  also  considered  to  be  in  no  danger  .of  caus- 
ing destruction  by  sudden  breakage,  as  the  down- 
pour of  water  would  spread  out  over  a  large  area 
of  level  land.  Besides  these  there  are  other 
Croton  water  storage  basins  formed  by  dams  as 
follows :  East  Branch,  with  a  capacity  of  4,500,- 
000,000  gallons;  Lake  Mahopac,  575,000,000 
gallons;  Lake  Kirk,  565,000,000  gallons;  Lake 
Gleneida,  165,000,000 gallons:  Lake  Gilead,  380,- 
000,000  gallons ;  Lake  Waccabec,  200,000,000 
gallons  ;  Lake  Lonetta,  50,000,000  gallons  ;  Bar- 
rett's ponds,  170,000,000  gallons;  China  pond, 
105,000,000  gallons ;  White  pond,  100,000,000 
gallons;  Pines  pond,  75,000,000  gallons;  Long 
pond,  60,000,000  gallons  ;  Peach  pond,  230,000,- 
ooo  gallons;  Cross  pond,  110,000,000  gallons, 
and  Haines  pond,  125,000,000  gallons,  thus  com- 
pleting the  storage  capacity  of  the  Croton  water 
system  of  14,000,000,000  gallons.  The  engineers 
claim  that  none  of  these  last-named  could  cause 


.,  -,  2  THE  JOHNS  TO  IV N  JLO  OD. 

loss  of  life  or  any  great  damage  to  property,  be- 
cause there  exist  abundant  natural  outlets. 

At  Whitehall,  N.  G.,  there  is  a  reservoir  created 
by  a  dam  three  hundred  and  twenty  feet  long 
across  a  valley  half  a  mile  from  the  village  and 
two  hundred  and  sixty-six  feet  above  it.  A  break 
in  this  dam  would  release  nearly  six  million 
gallons,  and  probably  sweep  away  the  entire  town. 
Norwich,  N.  Y.,  is  supplied  by  an  earthwork  dam, 
with  centre  puddle-wall,  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  feet  long  and  forty  feet  high.  It  imprisons 
thirty  million  gallons  and  stands  one  hundred  and 
eighty  feet  above  the  village.  At  an  elevation  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  town  of  Olean 
N.  Y.,  stands  an  embankment  holding  in  check 
two  million,  five  hundred  thousand  gallons. 
Oneida,  N.  Y.,  is  supplied  by  a  reservoir  formed 
by  a  dam  across  a  stream  which  controls  twenty- 
two  million,  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
gallons.  The  dam  is  nearly  three  miles  from  the 
village  and  at  an  altitude  of  one  hundred  and 
ninty  feet  above  it.  Such  are  some  of  the  reser- 
voirs which  threaten  other  communities  of  our 
fair  land. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 


IT  is  now  the  Thursday  after  the  disaster,  and 
amid  the  ruins  of  Johnstown  people  are  begin- 
ning- to  get  their  wits  together.  They  have  quit 
the  aimless  wandering  about  amid  the  ruins,  that 
marked  them  for  a  crushed  and  despairing  peo- 
ple. Everybody  is  getting  to  work  and  forget- 
ting something  of  the  horror  of  the  situation  in 
the  necessity  of  thinking  of  what  they  are  doing. 
The  deadly  silence  that  has  prevailed  throughout 
the  town  is  ended,  giving  place  to  the  shouts  of 
hundreds  of  men  pulling  at  ropes,  and  the  crash 
of  timbers  and  roofs  as  they  pull  wrecked  build- 
ings down  or  haul  heaps  of  debris  to  pieces. 
Hundreds  more  are  making  an  almost  merry 
clang  with  pick  and  shovel  as  they  clear  away 
mud  and  gravel,  opening  ways  on  the  lines  of  the 
old  streets.  Locomotives  are  puffing  about,  down 
into  the  heart  of  the  town  now,  and  the  great 
whistle  at  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  blew  for  noon 

(333) 


334 


THE  JOHNS'lOWN  FLOOD. 


yesterday  and  to-day  for  the  first  time  since  the 
flood  silenced  it.  To  lighten  the  sombre  aspect 
of  the  ruined  area,  heightened  by  the  cold  gray 
clouds  hanging  low  about  the  hills,  were  acres  of 
flame,  where  debris  is  being  got  rid  of.  Down  in 
what  was  the  heart  of  the  city  the  soldiers  have 
gone  into  camp,  and  little  flags  snap  brightly  in 
the  high  wind  from  their  acres  of  white  tents. 

The  relief  work  seems  now  to  be  pretty  thor- 
oughly organized,  and  thousands  of  men  are  at 
work  under  the  direction  of  the  committee.  The 
men  are  in  gangs  of  about  a  hundred  each,  under 
foremen,  with  mounted  superintendents  riding 
about  overseeing  the  work. 

The  first  effort,  aside  from  that  being  made 
upon  the  gorge  at  the  bridge,  is  in  the  upper  part 
of  the  city  and  in  Stony  Creek  Gap,  where  there 
are  many  houses  with  great  heaps  of  debris  cov- 
ering and  surrounding  them.  Three  or  four  hun- 
dred men  were  set  at  work  with  ropes,  chains, 
and  axes  upon  each  of  these  heaps,  tearing  it  to 
pieces  as  rapidly  as  possible.  Where  there  are 
only  smashed  houses  and  furniture  in  the  heap 
the  work  is  easy,  but  when,  as  in  most  instances, 
there  are  long  logs  and  tree-trunks  reaching  in 
every  direction  through  the  mass,  the  task  of  get- 
ting them  out  is  a  slow  and  difficult  one.  The 
lighter  parts  of  the  wreck  are  tossed  into  heaps 
in  the  nearest  clear  space  and  set  on  fire.  Horses 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


335 


haul  the  logs  and  heavier  pieces  off  to  add  them 
to  other  blazing  piles.  Everything  of  any  value 
is  carefully  laid  aside,  but  there  is  little  of  it. 
Even  the  strongest  furniture  is  generally  in  little 
bits  when  found,  but  in  one  heap  this  morning 
were  found  two  mirrors,  one  about  six  feet  by 
eight  in  size,  without  a  crack  in  it,  and  with  its 
frame  little  damaged  ;  the  other  one,  about  two 
feet  by  three  in  size,  had  a  little  crack  at  the  bot- 
tom, but  was  otherwise  all  right. 

Every  once  in  a  while  the  workmen  about  these 
wreck-heaps  will  stop  their  shouting  and  straining 
at  the  ropes,  gather  into  a  crowd  at  some  one 
spot  in  the  ruins,  and  remain  idle  and  quiet  for  a 
little  while.  Presently  the  group  will  stir  itself  a 
little,  fall  apart,  and  out  of  it  will  come  six  men 
bearing  between  them  on  a  ddor  or  other  im- 
provised stretcher  a  vague  form  covered  with  a 
canvas  blanket.  The  bearers  go  off  along  the 
irregular  paths  worn  into  the  muddy  plain,  to- 
ward the  different  morgues,  and  the  men  go  to 
work  again. 

These  little  groups  of  six,  with  the  burden  be- 
tween them,  are  as  frequent  as  ever.  One  runs 
across  them  everywhere  about  the  place.  Some- 
times they  come  so  thick  that  they  have  to  form 
in  line  at  the  morgue  doors.  The  activity  with 
which  work  was  prosecuted  brought  rapidly  to 
light  the  dark  places  within  the  ruins  in  which 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

remained  concealed  those  bodies  that  the  previous 
desultory  searching  had  not  brought  to  light. 
Many  of  the  disclosures  might  almost  better  have 
never  seen  the  light,  so  heart-rending  were  they. 
A  mother  lay  with  three  children  clasped  in  her 
arms.  So  suddenly  had  the  visitation  come  upon 
them  that  the  little  ones  had  plainly  been  snatched 
up  while  at  play,  for  one  held  a  doll  clutched 
tightly  in  its  dead  hand,  and  in  one  hand  of  an- 
other were  three  marbles.  This  was  right  oppo- 
site the  First  National  Bank  building,  in  the  heart 
of  the  city,  and  near  the  same  spot  a  family  of 
five — father,  mother,  and  three  children — were 
found  dead  together.  Not  far  off  a  roof  was  lift- 
ed up,  and  dropped  again  in  horror  at  the  sight 
of  nine  bodies  beneath  it.  There  were  more 
bodies,  or  fragments  of  bodies,  found,  too,  in  the 
gorge  at  the  bridge,  and  from  the  Cambria  Iron 
Works  the  ghastly  burden-bearers  began  to  come 
in  with  the  first  contributions  of  that  locality  to 
the  death  list.  The  passage  of  time  is  also  bring- 
ing to  the  surface  bodies  that  have  been  lying  be- 
neath the  river  further  down,  and  from  Nineveh 
bodies  are  continually  being  sent  up  to  Morrell- 
ville,  just  below  the  iron  works,  for  identification. 
Wandering  about  near  the  ruins  of  Wood,  Mor- 
rell  &  Co.'s  store  a  messenger  from  Morrellville 
found  a  man  who  looked  like  the  pictures  of  the 
Tennessee  mountaineers  in  the  Century  Maga- 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

sine,  with  an  addition  of  woe  and  misery  upon 
his  gaunt,  hairy  face  that  no  picture  could  ever 
indicate.  He  was  tall  and  thin,  and  bent,  and, 
from  his  appearance,  abjectly  poor.  He  was  tell- 
ing two  strangers  how  he  had  lived  right  across 
from  the  store,  with  his  wife  and  eight  children. 
When  the  high  water  came  and  word  was  brought 
that  the  dam  was  in  danger,  he  told  his  wife  to 
get  the  children  together  and  come  with  him.  The 
water  was  deep  in  the  streets,  and  the  passage  to 
the  bluff  would  have  been  difficult.  She  laughed 
at  him  and  told  him  the  dam  was  all  right.  He 
urged  her,  ordered  her,  and  did  everything  else 
but  pick  her  up  bodily  and  carry  her  out,  but  she 
would  not  come.  Finally  he  set  the  example  and 
dashea  out,  himself,  through  the  water,  calling  to 
his  wife  to  follow.  As  his  feet  began  to  touch 
rising  ground,  he  saw  the  wall  of  water  coming 
down  the  valley.  He  climbed  in  blind  terror  up 
the  bank,  helped  by  the  rising  water,  and,  reach- 
ing solid  ground,  turned  just  in  time  to  see  the 
water  strike  his  house. 

"When  I  turned  my  back,"  he  said,  "I  couldn't 
look  any  longer." 

Tears  ran  down  his  face  as  he  said  this.  The 
messenger  coming  up  just  then  said  : — 

"  Your  wife  has  been  found.  They  got  her 
down  at  Nineveh.  Her  brother  has  gone  to  fetch 
her  up." 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

* 

The  man  went  away  with  the  messenger. 

"  He  didn't  seem  much  rejoiced  over  the  good 
news  about  his  wife,"  remarked  one  of  the  stran- 
gers, who  had  yet  to  learn  that  Johnstown  people 
speak  of  death  and  the  dead  only  indirectly  when- 
ever possible. 

It  was  the  wife's  body,  not  the  wife,  that  had 
been  found,  and  that  the  messenger  was  to  fetch 
up.  The  bodies  of  this  man's  eight  children  have 
not  yet  been  found.  He  is  the  only  survivor  of 
a  family  of  ten. 

Queer  salvage  from  the  flood  was  a  cat  that 
was  taken  out  alive  last  evening.  Its  hair  was 
singed  off  and  one  eye  gone,  but  it  was  able  to 
lick  the  hand  of  the  man  who  picked  it  up  and 
carried  it  off  to  keep,  he  said,  as  a  relic  of  the 
flood.  A  white  Wyandotte  rooster  and  two  hens 
were  also  dug  out  alive,  and  with  dry  feathers, 
from  the  centre  of  a  heap  of  wrecked  buildings. 

The  work  of  clearing  up  the  site  of  the  town 
has  progressed  so  far  that  the  outlines  of  some 
of  the  old  streets  could  be  faintly  traced,  and  citi- 
zens were  going  about  hunting  up  their  lots.  In 
many  cases  it  was  a  difficult  task,  but  enough  old 
landmarks  are  left  to  make  the  determination  of 
boundary  lines  by  a  new  survey  a  comparatively 
easy  matter. 

The  scenes  in  the  morgues  are  disgusting  in  the 
highest  degree.  The  embalmers  are  at  work  cut- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

ting  and  slashing  with  an  apathy  born  of  four  days 
and  nights  of  the  work,  and  such  as  they  never 
experienced  before.  The  boards  on  which  the 
bodies  lie  are  covered  with  mud  and  slime,  in 
many  instances. 

Men  with  dynamite,  blowing  up  the  drift  at  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  bridge,  people  in  the  drift 
watching  for  bodies,  people  finding  bodies  in  the 
ruins  and  carrying  them  away  on  stretchers  or 
sheets,  the  bonfires  of  blazing  debris  all  over  the 
town,  the  soldiers  with  their  bayonets  guarding 
property  or  taking  thieves  into  custody,  the  tin- 
starred  policemen  with  their  base  ball  clubs 
promenading  the  streets  and  around  the  ruins, 
the  scenes  of  distress  and  frenzy  at  the  relief  sta- 
tions, the  crash  of  buildings  as  their  broken  rem- 
nants fall  to  the  ground — this  is  the  scene  that 
goes  on  night  and  day  in  Johnstown,  and  will  go 
on  for  an  indefinite  time.  Still,  people  have 
worked  so  in  the  midst  of  such  excitement,  with 
the  pressure  of  such  an  awful  horror  on  their 
minds  that  they  can  get  but  little  rest  even  when 
they  wish  to.  Men  in  this  town  are  too  tired  to 
sleep.  They  lie  down  with  throbbing  brains  that 
cannot  stop  throbbing,  so  that  even  the  sense  of 
thinking  is  intense  agony. 

The  undertakers  and  embalmers  claim  that 
they  are  the  busiest  men  in  town,  and  that  they 
have  done  more  to  help  the  city  than  any  other 


340 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


workmen.  The  people  who  attend  the  morgues 
for  the  purpose  of  identifying-  their  friends  and 
relatives  are  hardly  as  numerous  as  before.  Many 
of  them  are  exhausted  with  the  constant  wear  and 
tear,  and  many  have  about  made  up  their  minds 
that  their  friends  are  lost  beyond  recovery,  and 
that  there  is  no  use  looking  for  them  any  longer. 
Others  have  gone  to  distant  parts  of  the  State, 
and  have  abandoned  Johnstown  and  all  in  it. 

A  little  girl  in  a  poor  calico  dress  climbed  upon 
the  fence  at  the  Adams  Street  morgue  and  looked 
wistfully  at  the  row  of  coffins  in  the  yard.  Peo- 
ple were  only  admitted  to  the  morgue  in  squads 
of  ten  each,  and  the  little  girl's  turn  had  not  come 
yet.  Her  name  was  Jennie  Hoffman.  She  was 
twelve  years  old.  She  told  a  reporter  that  out  of 
her  family  of  fourteen  the  father  and  mother  and 
oldest  sister  were  lost.  They  were  all  in  their 
home  on  Somerset  Street  when  the  flood  came. 
The  father  reached  out  for  a  tree  which  went 
sweeping  by,  and  was  pulled  out  of  the  window 
and  lost.  The  mother  and  children  got  upon  the 
roof,  and  then  a  dash  of  water  carried  her  and 
the  eldest  daughter  off.  A  colored  man  on  an 
adjoining  house  took  off  the  little  girls  who  were 
left — all  of  them  under  twelve  years  of  age,  ex- 
cept Jennie — and  together  they  clambered  over 
the  roofs  of  the  houses  near  by  and  escaped. 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 


DAY  after  day  the  work  of  reparation  goes  on. 
The  city  has  been  blotted  out.  Yet  the  reeking 
ruins  that  mark  its  site  are  teeming  with  life 
and  work  more  vigorous  than  ever  marked  its 
noisy  streets  and  panting  factories.  As  men  and 
money  pour  into  Johnstown  the  spirit  of  the  town 
greatly  revives,  and  the  people  begin  to  take  a 
much  more  favorable  view  of  things.  The  one 
thing  that  is  troubling  people  just  now  is  the  lack 
of  ready  money.  There  are  drafts  here  in  any 
quantity,  but  there  is  no  money  to  cash  them 
until  the  money  in  the  vaults  of  the  First  National 
Bank  has  been  recovered.  It  is  known  that  the 
vaults  are  safe  and  that  about  $500,000  in  cash 
is  there.  Of  this  sum  $125,000  belongs  to  tlui 
Cambria  Iron  Company.  It  was  to  pay  the  five 
thousand  employes  of  the  works.  The  men  are 
paid  off  every  two  weeks,  and  the  last  pay-day 
was  to  have  been  on  the  Saturday  after  the  fatal 

(341) 


342 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 


flood.  The  money  was  brought  clown  to  Johns- 
town, on  the  day  before  the  flood,  by  the  Adams 
Express  Company,  and  deposited  in  the  bank. 
After  the  water  subsided,  and  it  was  discovered 
that  the  money  was  safe,  a  guard  was  placed 
around  the  bank  and  has  been  maintained  ever 
since. 

When  the  pay-day  of  the  Cambria  Iron  Com- 
pany does  come  it  will  be  an  impressive  scene. 
The  only  thing  comparable  to  it  will  be  the  roll- 
call  after  a  great  battle.  Mothers,  wives,  and 
children  will  be  there  to  claim  the  wages  of  sons, 
and  husbands,  and  fathers.  The  men  in  the 
gloomy  line  will  have  few  families  to  take  their 
wages  home  to.  The  Cambria  people  do  not 
propose  to  stand  on  any  red-tape  rules  about 
paying  the  wages  of  their  dead  employes  to  the 
surviving  friends  and  relatives.  They  will  only 
try  to  make  reasonably  sure  that  they  are  paying 
the  money  to  the  right  persons. 

An  assistant  cashier,  Thomas  McGee,  in  the 
company's  store  saved  $12,000  of  the  company's 
funds.  The  money  was  all  in  packages  of  bills 
in  bags  in  the  safe  on  the  ground  floor  of  the 
main  building  of  the  stores.  When  the  water 
began  to  rise  he  went  up  on  the  second  floor  of 
the  building,  carrying  the  money  with  him. 
When  the  crash  of  the  reservoir  torrent  came 
Mr.  McGee  clambered  upon  the  roof,  and  just 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


345 


before  the  building  tottered  and  fell  he  managed 
to  jump  on  the  roof  of  a  house  that  went  by.  The 
house  was  swept  near  the  bank.  Mr.  McGee 
jumped  off  and  fell  into  the  water,  but  struck  out 
and  managed  to  clamber  up  the  bank.  Then  he 
got  up  on  the  hills  and  remained  out  all  night 
guarding  his  treasure. 

At  dawn  of  Thursday  the  stillness  of  the  night, 
which  had  been  punctured  frequently  by  the  pis- 
tol and  musket  shots  of  vigilant  guards  scaring 
off  possible  marauders,  was  permanently  fractured 
by  the  arousing  of  gangs  of  laborers  who  had 
slept  about  wherever  they  could  find  a  soft  spot 
in  the  ruins,  as  well  as  in  tents  set  up  in  the  cen- 
tre of  where  the  town  used  to  be.  The  soldiers 
in  their  camps  were  seen  about  later,  and  the  rail- 
road gang  of  several  hundred  men  set  out  up  the 
track  toward  where  they  had  left  off  work  the 
night  before.  Breakfast  was  cooked  at  hundreds 
of  camp-fires,  and  about  brick-kilns,  and  wherever 
else  *a  fire  could  be  got.  At  seven  o'clock  five 
thousand  laborers  struck  pick  and  shovel  and  saw 
into  the  square  miles  of  debris  heaped  over  the 
city's  site.  At  the  same  time  more  laborers  be- 
gan to  arrive  on  trains  and  march  through  the 
streets  in  long  gangs  toward  the  place  where  they 
were  needed.  Those  whose  work  was  to  be  pull- 
ing and  hauling  trailed  along  in  lines,  holding  to 
their  ropes.  They  looked  like  gangs  of  slaves 
20 


3 46  THE  JOHNST°WN  FLOOD. 

being  driven  to  a  market.  By  the  time  the  fore- 
noon was  well  under  way,  seven  thousand  labor- 
ers were  at  work  in  the  city  under  the  direction 
of  one  hundred  foremen.  There  were  five  hun- 
dred cars  and  as  many  teams,  and  half  a  dozen 
portable  hoisting  engines,  besides  regular  loco- 
motives and  trains  of  flat  cars  that  were  used  in 
hauling  off  debris  that  could  not  be  burned. 
With  this  force  of  men  and  appliances  at  work 
the  ruined  city,  looked  at  from  the  bluffs,  seemed 
to  fairly  swarm  with  life,  wherever  the  flood  had 
left  anything  to  be  removed.  The  whole  lower 
part  of  the  city,  except  just  above  the  bridge,  re- 
mained the  deserted  mud  desert  that  the  waters 
left.  There  was  no  cleaning  up  necessary  there. 
Through  the  upper  part  of  the  city,  where  the 
houses  were  simply  smashed  to  kindling  wood 
and  piled  into  heaps,  but  not  ground  to  pieces 
under  the  whirlpool  that  bore  down  on  the  rest 
of  the  city,  acres  of  bonfires  have  burned  all  day. 
The  stifling  smoke,  blown  by  a  high  wind,  has 
made  life  almost  unendurable,  and  the  flames 
have  twirled  about  so  fiercely  in  the  gusts  as  to 
scorch  the  workmen  some  distance  away.  Citi- 
zens whose  houses  were  not  damaged  beyond  sal- 
vation have  almost  got  to  work  in  clearing  out 
their  homes  and  trying  to  make  them  somewhere 
near  habitable.  In  the  poorer  parts  of  the  city 
often  one  story  and  a  half  frame  cottages  are  seen 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


347 


completely  surrounded  by  heaps  of  debris  tossed 
up  high  above  their  roofs.  Narrow  lanes  driven 
through  the  debris  have  given  the  owners  entrance 
to  their  homes. 

With  all  the  work  the  apparent  progress  was 
small.  A  stranger  seeing  the  place  for  the  first 
time  would  never  imagine  that  the  wreck  was  not 
just  as  the  flood  left  it.  The  enormity  of  the  task 
of  clearing  the  place  grows  more  apparent  the 
more  the  work  is  prosecuted,  and  with  the  force 
now  at  work  the  job  cannot  be  done  in  less  than 
a  month.  It  will  hardly  be  possible  to  find  room 
for  any  larger  force. 

The  railroads  added  largely  to  the  bustle  of  the 
place.  Long  freight  trains,  loaded  with  food  and 
clothing  for  the  suffering,  were  continually  coming 
in  faster  than  they  could  be  unloaded.  Lumber 
was  also  arriving  in  great  quantities,  and  hay  and 
feed  for  the  horses  was  heaped  up  high  alongside 
the  tracks.  Hundreds  of  men  were  swarming 
over  the  road-bed  near  the  Pennsylvania  station, 
strengthening  and  improving  the  line.  Work 
was  begun  on  frame  sheds  and  other  temporary 
buildings  in  several  places,  and  the  rattle  of  ham- 
mers added  its  din  to  the  shouts  of  the  workmen 
and  the  crash  of  falling  wreckage. 

Some  sort  of  organization  is  being  introduced 
into  other  things  about  the  city  than  the  clearing 
away  of  the  debris.  The  Post-office  is  established 


343  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

in  a  small  brick  building  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
city.  Those  of  the  letter  carriers  who  are  alive, 
and  a  few  clerks,  are  the  working  force.  The  re- 
ception of  mail  consists  of  one  damaged  street 
letter-box  set  upon  a  box  in  front  of  the  building 
and  guarded  by  a  carrier,  who  has  also  to  see 
that  there  is  no  crowding  in  the  long  lines  of  peo- 
ple waiting  to  get  their  turn  at  the  two  windows 
where  letters  and  stamps  are  served  out.  A  wide 
board,  stood  up  on  end,  is  lettered  rudely,  "Post- 
office  Bulletin,"  and  beneath  is  a  slip  of  paper 
with  the  information  that  a  mail  will  leave  the  city 
for  the  West  during  the  day,  and  that  no  mail 
has  been  received.  There  are  many  touching 
things  in  these  Post-office  lines.  It  is  a  good 
place  for  acquaintances  who  lived  in  different  parts 
of  the  city  to  find  out  whether  each  is  alive  or 
dead. 

"You  are  through  all  right,  I  see,"  said  one 
man  in  the  line  to  an  acquaintance  who  came  up 
this  morning. 

"Yes,"  said  the  acquaintance. 

"  And  how's  your  folks  ?  They  all  right,  too  ? " 
was  the  next  question. 

"Two  of  them  are — them  two  little  ones  sitting 
on  the  steps  there.  The  mother  and  the  other 
three  have  gone  down." 

Such  conversations  as  this  take  place  every  few 
minutes.  Near  the  Post-office  is  the  morgue  for 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


349 


that  part  of  the  city,  and  other  lines  of  waiting 
people  reach  out  from  there,  anxious  for  a  glimpse 
at  the  contents  of  the  twenty-five  coffins  ranged  in 
lines  in  front  of  the  school-building,  that  does  duty 
for  a  dead-house.  Only  those  who  have  business 
are  admitted,  but  the  number  is  never  a  small  one. 
Each  walks  along  the  lines  of  coffins,  raises  the 
cover  over  the  face,  glances  in,  drops  the  cover 
quickly,  and  passes  on.  Men  bearing  ghastly 
burdens  on  stretchers  pass  frequently  into  the 
school-house,  where  the  undertakers  prepare  the 
bodies  for  identification. 

A  little  farther  along  is  the  relief  headquarters 
for  that  part  of  the  city,  and  the  streets  there  are 
packed  all  day  long  with  women  and  children  with 
baskets  on  their  arms.  So  great  is  the  demand 
that  the  people  have  to  stand  in  line  for  an  hour 
to  get  their  turn.  A  large  unfinished  building  is 
turned  into  a  storehouse  for  clothing,  and  the 
people  throng  into  it  empty-handed  and  come  out 
with  arms  full  of  underclothing  and  other  wear- 
ing apparel.  At  another  building  the  sanitary 
bureau  is  servino-  out  disinfectants. 

O 

The  workmen  upon  the  debris  in  what  was  the 
heart  of  the  city  have  now  reached  well  into  the 
ruins  and  are  getting  to  where  the  valuable  con- 
tents of  jewelry  and  other  stores  may  be  expected 
to  be  found,  and  strict  watch  is  being  kept  to  pre- 
vent the  theft  of  any  such  articles  by  the  work- 


350 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


men  or  others.  In  the  ruins  of  the  Wood,  Morrell 
&  Co.  general  store  a  large  amount  of  goods, 
chiefly  provisions  and  household  utensils,  has  been 
found  in  fairly  good  order.  It  is  piled  in  a  heap 
as  fast  as  gotten  out,  and  the  building  is  being 
pulled  down. 

About  the  worst  heap  of  wreckage  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  city  is  where  the  Cambria  Library  build- 
ing stood,  opposite  the  general  store.  This  was 
a  very  substantial  and  handsome  building  and  of- 
fered much  obstruction  to  the  flood.  It  was  com- 
pletely destroyed,  but  upon  its  site  a  mass  of 
trees,  logs,  heavy  beams,  and  other  wreckage 
was  left,  knotted  together  into  a  mass  only  extri- 
cable  by  the  use  of  the  ax  and  saw.  Two  hun- 
dred men  have  worked  at  it  for  three  days  and  it 
is  not  half  removed  yet. 

The  Cambria  Iron  Company  have  several  acres 
of  gravel  and  clay  to  remove  from  the  upper  end 
of  its  yard.  Except  for  an  occasional  corner  of 
some  big  iron  machine  that  projects  above  the 
surface  no  one  would  ever  suspect  that  it  was  not 
the  original  earth.  In  one  place  a  freight  car 
brake-wheel  lies  just  on  the  surface  of  the  ground, 
apparently  dropped  there  loosely.  Any  one  who 
tries  to  kick  it  aside  or  pick  it  up  finds  that  it 
is  still  attached  to  its  car,  which  is  buried  under 
a  solid  mass  of  gravel  and  broken  rock.  Several 
lanes  have  been  dug  through  this  mass  down  to 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


351 


the  old  railroad  tracks,  and  two  or  three  of  the 
little  yard  engines  of  the  iron  company,  resur- 
rected with  smashed  smoke-stacks  and  other  light 
damage,  but  workable  yet,  go  puffing  about  hard- 
ly visible  above 'the  general  level  of  the  new-made 
ground. 

The  progress  of  the  work  upon  the  black  and 
still  smoking  mass  of  charred  ruins  above  the 
bridge  is  hardly  perceptible.  There  is  clear  water 
for  about  one  hundred  feet  back  from  the  central 
arch,  and  a  little  opening  before  the  two  on  each 
side  of  it.  When  there  is  a  good-sized  hole  made 
before  all  three  of  these  arches,  through  which 
the  bulk  of  the  water  runs,  it  is  expected  that 
the  stuff  can  be  pulled  apart  and  set  afloat  much 
more  rapidly.  Dynamiter  Kirk,  who  is  oversee- 
ing the  work,  used  up  the  last  one  hundred 
pounds  of  the  explosive  early  this  afternoon,  and 
had  to  suspend  operations  until  the  arrival  of  two 
hundred  pounds  more  that  was  on  the  way  from 
Pittsburgh.  The  dynamite  has  been  used  in  small 
doses  for  fear  of  damaging  the  bridge.  Six 
pounds  was  the  heaviest  charge  used.  Even  with 
this  the  stone  beneath  the  arches  of  the  bridge  is 
charred  and  crumbling  in  places,  and  some  pieces 
have  been  blown  out  of  the  heavy  coping.  The 
whole  structure  shakes  as  though  with  an  earth- 
quake at  every  discharge. 

The  dynamite  is  placed  in  holes  drilled  in  logs 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

matted  into  the  surface  of  the  raft,  and  its  effect 
being  downward,  the  greatest  force  of  the  explo- 
sion is  upon  the  mass  of  stuff  beneath  the  water. 
At  the  same  time  each  charge  sent  up  into  the 
air,  one  hundred  feet  or  more,  a  fountain  of  dirt, 
stones,  and  blackened  fragments  of  logs,  many 
of  them  large  enough  to  be  dangerous.  The 
rattling  crash  of  their  fall  upon  the  bridge  follows 
hard  after  the  heavy  boom  of  the  explosion.  One 
of  the  worst  and  most  unexpected  objects  with 
which  the  men  on  the  raft  have  to  contend  is  the 
presence  in  it  of  hundreds  of  miles  of  telegraph 
wire  wound  around  almost  everything  there  and 
binding  the  whole  mass  together. 

No  bodies  have  yet  been  brought  to  the  sur- 
face by  the  operations  with  dynamite,  but  indica- 
tions of  several  buried  beneath  the-  surface  are 
evident.  A  short  distance  back  from  where  the 
men  are  not  at  work,  bodies  continue  to  be  taken 
out  from  the  surface  of  the  raft  at  the  rate  of 
ten  or  a  dozen  a  day.  The  men  this  afternoon 
came  across  hundreds  of  feet  of  polished  copper 
pipe,  which  is  said  to  have  come  from  a  Pullman 
car.  It  was  not  known  until  then  that  there  was  a 
Pullman  car  in  that  part  of  the  raft.  The  rem- 
nants of  a  vestibule  car  are  plainly  seen  at  a  point 
a  hundred  feet  away  from  this. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 


THE  first  thing  that  Johnstown  people  do  in  the 
morning  is  to  go  to  the  relief  stations  and  get 
something  to  eat.  They  go  carrying  big  baskets, 
and  their  endeavor  is  to  get  all  they  can.  There 
has  been  a  new  system  every  day  about  the  man- 
ner of  dispensing  the  food  and  clothing  to  the  suf- 
ferers. At  first  the  supplies  were  placed  where 
people  could  help  themselves.  Then  they  were 
placed  in  yards  and  handed  to  people  over  the 
fences.  Then  people  had  to  get  orders  for  what 
they  wanted  from  the  Citizens  Committee,  and 
their  orders  were  filled  at  the  different  relief  sta- 
tions. Now  the  whole  matter  of  receiving  and 
'  dispensing  relief  supplies  has  been  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  men. 
Thomas  A.  Stewart,  commander  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Pennsylvania,  G.  A.  R.,  arrived  with  his 
staff  and  established  his  headquarters  in  a  tent 
near  the  headquarters  of  the  Citizens  Committee, 

U53) 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

and  opposite  the  temporary  post-office.  Over  this 
tent  floats  Commander  Stewart's  flag,  with  pur- 
ple border,  bearing  the  arms  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania.  The  members  of  his  staff  are  : 
Quartermaster-General  Tobin  Taylor  and  his  as- 
sistant H.  J.  Williams,  Chaplain  John  W.  Sayres, 
and  W.  V.  Lawrence,  quartermaster-general  of 
the  Ohio  Department.  The  Grand  Army  men 
have  made  the  Adams  Street  relief  station  a 
central  relief  station,  and  all  the  others,  at  Kern- 
ville,  the  Pennsylvania  depot,  Cambria  City,  and 
Jackson  and  Somerset  Street,  sub-stations.  The 
idea  is  to  distribute  supplies  to  the  sub-stations 
from  the  central  station,  and  thus  avoid  the  jam 
of  crying  and  excited  people  at  the  committee's 
headquarters. 

The  Grand  Army  men  have  appointed  a  com- 
mittee of  women  to  assist  them  in  their  work. 
The  women  go  from  house  to  house,  ascertaining 
the  number  of  people  quartered  there,  the  num- 
ber of  people  lost  from  there  in  the  flood,  and  the 
exact  needs  of  the  people.  It  was  found  neces- 
sary to  have  some  such  committee  as  this,  for 
there  were  women  actually  starving,  who  were  too 
proud  to  take  their  places  in  line  with  the  other 
women  with  bags  and  baskets.  Some  of  these 
people  were  rich  before  the  flood.  Now  they  are 
not  worth  a  dollar.  A  Sun  reporter  was  told  of 
one  man  who  was  reported  to  be  worth  $100,000 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


355 


before  the  flood,  but  who  now  is  penniless,  and 
who  has  to  take  his  place  in  the  line  along  with 
others  seeking  the  necessaries  of  life. 

Though  the  Adams  Street  station  is  now  the 
central  relief  station,  the  most  imposing  display  of 
supplies  is  made  at  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
freight  and  passenger  depots.  Here,  on  the 
platforms  and  in  the  yards,  are  piled  up  barrels  of 
flour  in  long  rows,  three  and  four  barrels  high  ; 
biscuits  in  cans  and  boxes,  where  car-loads  of 
them  have  been  dumped ;  crackers,  under  the  rail- 
road sheds  in  bins ;  hams,  by  the  hundred,  strung 
on  poles ;  boxes  of  soap  and  candles,  barrels  of 
kerosene  oil,  stacks  of  canned  goods,  and  things 
to  eat  of  all  sorts  and  kinds.  The  same  is  visible 
at  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  road,  and  there  is  now 
no  fear  of  a  food  famine  in  Johnstown,  though  of 
course  everybody  will  have  to  rough  it  for  weeks. 
What  is  needed  most  in  this  line  is  cooking  uten- 
sils. Johnstown  people  want  stoves,  kettles,  pans, 
knives,  and  forks.  All  the  things  that  have  been 
sent  so  far  have  been  sent  with  the  evident  idea 
of  supplying  an  instant  need,  and  that  is  right  and 
proper,  but  it  would  be  well  now,  if,  instead  of 
some  of  the  provisions  that  are  sent,  cooking 
utensils  would  arrive.  Fifty  stoves  arrived  from 
Pittsburgh  this  morning,  and  it  is  said  that  more 
are  coming. 

At  both  the  depots  where  the  supplies  are  re- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

ceived  and  stored  a  big  rope-line  incloses  them 
in  an  impromptu  yard,  so  as  to  give  room  to 
those  having  them  in  charge  to  walk  around  and 
see  what  they  have  got.  On  the  inside  of  this 
line,  too,  stalk  back  and  forth  the  soldiers,  with 
their  rifles  on  their  shoulders,  and,  beside  the 
lines  pressing  against  the  ropes,  there  stands 
every  day,  from  daylight  until  dawn,  a  crowd  of 
women  with  big  baskets,  who  make  piteous  ap- 
peals to  the  soldiers  to  give  them  food  for  their 
children  at  once,  before  the  order  of  the  relief 
committee.  Those  to  whom  supplies  are  dealt 
out  at  the  stations  have  to  approach  in  a  line,  and 
this  line  is  fringed  with  soldiers,  Pittsburgh  police- 
men, and  deputy  sheriffs,  who  see  that  the  chil- 
dren and  weak  women  are  not  crowded  out  of 
their  places  by  the  stronger  ones.  The  supplies 
are  not  given  in  large  quantities,  but  the  appli- 
cants are  told  to  come  again  in  a  day  or  so  and 
more  will  be  given  them.  The  women  complain 
against  this  bitterly,  and  go  away  with  tears  in 
their  eyes,  declaring  that  they  have  not  been  given 
enough.  Other  women  utter  broken  words  of 
thankfulness  and  go  away,  their  faces  wreathed 
in  smiles. 

One  night  something  in  the  nature  of  a  raid 
was  made  by  Father  McTahney,  one  of  the  Cath- 
olic priests  here,  on  the  houses  of  some  people 
whom  he  suspected  of  having  imposed  upon  the 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


357 


relief  committee.  These  persons  represented 
that  they  were  destitute,  and  sent  their  children 
with  baskets  to  the  relief  stations,  each  child  get- 
ting supplies  for  a  different  family.  There  are 
unquestionably  many  such  cases.  Father  Mc- 
Tahney  found  that  his  suspicions  were  correct  in 
a  great  many  cases,  and  he  brought  back  and 
made  the  wrong-doers  bring  back  the  provisions 
which  they  had  obtained  under  false  pretenses. 

The  side  tracks  at  both  the  Pennsylvania  and 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  depots  are  filled 
with  cars  sent  from  different  places,  bearing  relief 
supplies  to  Johnstown.  The  cars  are  nearly  all 
freight  cars,  and  they  contain  the  significant  in- 
scriptions of  the  railroad  officials:  "This  car  is 
on  time  freight.  It  is  going  to  Johnstown,  and 
must  not  be  delayed  under  any  circumstances." 
Then,  there  are  the  ponderous  labels  of  the 
towns  and  associations  sending  the  supplies. 
They  read  this  way:  "This  car  for  Johnstown 
with  supplies  for  the  sufferers."  "  Braddock  re- 
lief for  Johnstown."  "The  contributions  of 
Beaver  Falls  to  Johnstown."  The  cars  from 
Pittsburgh  had  no  inscriptions.  Some  cars  had 
merely  the  inscription,  in  great  big  black  letters 
on  a  white  strip  of  cloth  running  the  length  of  the 
car,  "Johnstown."  One  car /eads  on  it:  "Sta- 
tions along  the  route  fill  this  car  with  supplies  for 
Johnstown,  and  don't  delay  it." 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 


AT  the  end  of  the  week  Adjutant-General 
Hastings  moved  his  headquarters  from  the  signal 
tower  and  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  depot  to  the 
eastern  end  of  the  Pennsylvania  freight  depot. 
Here  the  general  and  his  staff  sleep  on  the  hard 
floor,  with  only  a  blanket  under  them.  They 
have  their  work  systematized  and  in  good  shape, 
though  about  all  they  have  done  or  will  do  is  to 
prevent  strangers  and  others  who  have  no  busi- 
ness here  from  entering  the  city.  The  entire 
regiment  which  is  here  is  disposed  around  the 
city  in  squads  of  two  or  three  men  each.  The 
men  are  scattered  up  and  down  the  Conemaugh, 
away  out  on  the  Pennsylvania  and  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railaoad  tracks,  along  Stony  Creek  on  the 
southern  side  of  the  town,  and  even  upon  the 
hills.  It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  get  into 
town  by  escaping  the 'guards,  for  there  is  a  cor- 
don of  soldiers  about  it.  General  Hastings  rides 

(358) 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

around  on  a  horse,  inspecting  the  posts,  and  the 
men  on  guard  present  arms  to  him  in  due  form, 
he  returning  the  salute.  The  sight  is  a  singular 
one,  for  General  Hastings  is  not  in  uniform,  and 
in  fact  wears  a  very  rusty  civilian's  dress.  He 
wears  a  pair  of  rubber  boots  covered  with  mud,, 
and  a  suit  of  old,  well-stained,  black  clothes.  His 
coat  is  a  cutaway.  His  appearance  among  his, 
staff  officers  is  still  more  dramatic,  for  the  latter,, 
being  ordered  out  and  having  time  to  prepare, 
are  in  gold  lace  and  feathers  and  glittering  uni- 
forms. 

General  Hastings  came  here  right  after  the 
flood,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  not  in  his 
official  capacity.  He  rides  his  horse  finely  and 
looks  every  inch  a  soldier.  He  has  established 
in  his  headquarters  in  the  freight  depot  a  very 
much-needed  bureau  for  the  answering-  of  tele- 

O 

grams  from  friends  of  Johnstown  people  making 
inquiries  as  to  the  latter's  safety.  The  bureau  is 
in  charge  of  A.  K.  Parsons,  who  has  done  good 
work  since  the  flood,  and  who,  with  Lieutenant 
George  Miller,  of  the  Fifth  Infantry,  U.  S.  A., 
General  Hastings'  right-hand  man,  has  been  with 
the  general  constantly.  The  telegrams  in  the 
past  have  all  been  sent  to  the  headquarters  of  the 
Citizens  Committee,  in  the  Fourth  Ward  Hotel, 
and  have  laid  there,  along  with  telegrams  of  every 
sort,  in  a  little  heap  on  a  little  side  table  in  one 


-,50  ThE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

corner  of  the  room.  Three-quarters  of  .them 
were  not  called  for,  and  people  who  knew  that 
telegrams  were  there  for  them  did  not  have  the 
patience  to  look  through  the  heap  for  them.  Fi- 
nally some  who  were  not  worried  to  death  took 
the  telegrams,  opened  them  all,  and  pinned  them 
in  separate  packages  in  alphabetical  order  and 
then  put  them  back  on  the  table  again,  and  they 
have  been  pored  over,  until  their  edges  are  frayed, 
by  all  the  people  who  crowded  into  the  little  low- 
roofed  room  where  Dictator  Scott  and  his  mes- 
sengers are.  There  were  something  like  three 
thousand  telegrams  there  in  all.  Occasionally  a 
few  are  taken  away,  but  in  the  majority  of  cases 
they  remain  there.  The  persons  to  whom  they 
were  sent  are  dead  or  have  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  come  to  headquarters  and  see  if  their  friends 
are  inquiring  after  them.  Of  course  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company  makes  no  effort  to 
deliver  the  messages.  This  would  be  impossible. 

The  telegrams  addressed  to  the  Citizens  Com- 
mittee headquarters  are  all  different  in  form,  of 
course,  but  they  all  breathe  the  utmost  anxiety 
and  suspense.  Here  are  some  samples  : — 

Is  Samuel  there  ?  Is  there  any  hope  ?  Answer 
me  and  end  this  suspense.  SARAH.. 

To  anybody  in  Johnstown  : 

Can  you  give  me  any  information  of  Adam 
Brennan  ?  MARY  BRENNAN. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Are  any  of  you  alive  ?  JAMES. 

Are  you  all  safe  ?  Is  it  our  John  Burn  that  is 
dead  ?  Is  Eliza  safe  ?  Answer. 

It  is  worth  repeating  again  that  the  majority  of 
these  telegrams  will  never  be  answered. 

The  Post-office  letter  carriers  have  only  just  be- 
gun to  make  their  rounds  in  that  part  of  the  town 
which  is  comparatively  uninjured.  Bags  of  first- 
class  mail  matter  are  alone  brought  into  town.  It 
will  be  weeks  before  people  see  the  papers  in  the 
mails.  The  supposition  is  that  nobody  has  time 
to  read  papers,  and  this  is  about  right.  The  let- 
ter carriers  are  making  an  effort,,  as  far  as  they 
can,  to  distribute  mail  to  the  families  of  the  de- 
ceased people.  Many  of  the  letters  which  arrive 
now  contain  money  orders,  and  while  great  «are 
has  to  be  taken  in  the  distribution,  the  postal  au- 
thorities recognize  the  necessity  of  getting  these 
letters  to  the  parties  addressed,  or  else  returning 
them  to  the  Dead  Letter  Office  as  proof  of  the 
death  of  the  individuals  in  question.  It  is  no 
doubt  that  in  this  way  the  first  knowledge  of  the 
death  of  many  will  be  transmitted  to  friends. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  best  part  of  the  ener- 
gies of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  at  present  are 
all  turned  upon  Johnstown.  Here  are  the  leading 
physicians,  the  best  nurses,  some  of  the  heaviest 
contractors,  the  brightest  newspaper  men,  all  the 
military  geniuses,  and,  if  not  the  actual  presence, 

21 


364  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

at  least  the  attention,  of  the  capitalists.  The 
newspapers,  medical  reviews,  and  publications  of 
all  sorts  teem  with  suggestions.  Johnstown  is  a 
compendium  of  business,  and  misery,  and  despair. 
One  class  of  men  should  be  given  credit  for  thor- 
ough work  in  connection  with  the  calamity. 
These  are  the  undertakers.  They  came  to  Johns- 
town, from  all  over  Pennsylvania,  at  the  first  alarm. 
They  are  the  men  whose  presence  was  impera- 
tively needed,  and  who  have  actually  been  forced 
to  work  day  and  night  in  preserving  bodies  and 
preparing  them  for  burial.  One  of  the  most  act- 
ive undertakers  here  is  John  McCarthy,  of  Syra- 
cuse, N.  Y.,  one  of  the  leading  undertakers  there, 
and  a  very  public-spirited  man.  He  brought  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  Mayor  Kirk,  of  Syra- 
cuse, to  the  Citizens  Committee  here.  He  said 
to  a  reporter: — 

"  It  is  worthy  of  mention,  perhaps,  that  never 
before  in  such  a  disaster  as  this  have  bodies  re- 
ceived such  careful  treatment  and  has  such  a 
wholesale  embalming  been  practiced.  Everybody 
recovered,  whether  identified  or  not,  whether  of 
rich  man  or  poor  man,  or  of  the  humblest  child, 
has  been  carefully  cleaned  and  embalmed,  placed 
in  a  neat  coffin,  and  not  buried  when  unidentified 
until  the  last  possible  moment.  When  you  re- 
flect that  over  one  thousand  bodies  have  been 
treated  in  this  way  it  means  something.  It  is  to 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

be  regretted  that  some  pains  were  not  taken  to 
keep  a  record  of  the  bodies  recovered,  but  the 
undertakers  cannot  be  blamed  for  that.  They 
should  have  been  furnished  with  clerks,  and  that 
whole  matter  made  the  subject  of  the  work  of  a 
bureau  by  itself.  We  have  had  just  all  we  could 
do  cleaning  and  embalming  the  bodies." 

The  unsightliest  place  in  Johnstown  is  the 
morgue  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  The  edifice 
is  a  large  brick  structure  in  the  centre  of  the  city, 
and  was  about  the  first  church  building  in  the  city. 
About  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  people  took 
refuge  there  during  the  flood.  After  the  first 
crash,  when  the  people  were  expecting  another 
every  instant,  and  of  course  that  they  would  per- 
ish, the  pastor  of  the  church,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Beale, 
began  to  pray  fervently  that  the  lives  of  those  in 
the  church  might  be  spared.  He  fairly  wrestled 
in  prayer,  and  those  who  heard  him  say  that  it 
seemed  to  be  a  very  death-struggle  with  the  de- 
mon of  the  flood  itself.  No  second  crash  came, 
the  waters  receded,  and  the  lives  of  those  in  the 
church  were  spared.  The  people  said  that  it  was 
all  due  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Beale's  prayer.  The 
pews  in  the  church  were  all  demolished,  and  the 
Sunday-school  room  under  it  was  flooded  with  the 
angry  waters,  and  filled  up  to  the  ceiling  with 
debris.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Beale  is  now  general 
morgue  director  in  Johnstown,  and  has  the  au- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

thority  of  a  dictator  of  the  bodies  of  the  dead. 
In  the  Presbyterian  Church  morgue  the  bodies 
are,  almost  without  exception,  those  which  have 
been  recovered  from  the  ruins  of  the  smashed 
buildings.  The  bodies  are  torn  and  bruised  in 
the  most  horrible  manner,  so  that  identification  is 
very  difficult.  They  are  nearly  all  bodies  of  the 
prominent  or  well-known  residents  of  Johnstown. 
The  cleaning  and  embalming  of  the  bodies  takes 
place  in  the  corners  of  the  church,  on  either  side 
of  the  pulpit.  As  soon  as  they  have  a  present- 
able appearance,  the  bodies  are  placed  in  coffins, 
put  across  the  ends  of  the  pews  near  the  aisles, 
so  that  people  can  pass  around  through  the  aisles 
and  look  at  them.  Few  identifications  have  yet 
been  made  here.  In  one  coffin  is  the  body  of  a 
young  man  who  had  on  a  nice  bicycle  suit  when 
found.  In  his  pockets  were  forty  dollars  in  money. 
The  bicycle  has  not  been  found.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  body  is  that  of  some  young  fellow  who 
was  on  a  bicycle  tour  up  the  Conemaugh  River, 
and  who  was  ertgulfed  by  the  flood. 

The  waters  played  some  queer  freaks.  A 
number  of  mirrors  taken  out  of  the  ruins  with 
the  frames  smashed  and  with  the  glass  parts  en- 
tirely uninjured  have  been  a  matter  for  constant 
comment  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  inspected 
the  ruins  and  worked  in  them.  When  the  waters 
went  down,  the  Sunday-school  rooms  of  £he  Pres- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

byterian  Church  just  referred  to  were  found  lit- 
tered with  playing  cards.  In  a  baby's  cradle  was 
found  a  dissertation  upon  infant  baptism  and  two 
volumes  of  a  history  of  the  Crusades.  A  com- 
mercial man  from  Pittsburgh,  who  came  down  to 
look  at  the  ruins,  found  among  them  his  own 
picture.  He  never  was  in  Johnstown  but  two  or 
three  times  before,  and  he  did  not  have  any 
friends  there.  How  the  picture  got  among  the 
ruins  of  Johnstown  is  a  mystery  to  him. 

About  the  only  people  who  have  come  into 
Johnstown,  not  having  business  there  connected 
with  the  clearing  up  of  the  city,  are  people  from  a 
great  distance,  hunting  up  their  friends  and  rela- 
tives. There  are  folks  here  now  from  almost 
every  State  in  the  Union,  with  the  exception,  per- 
haps, of  those  on  the  Pacific  coast.  There  are 
people,  too,  from  Pennsylvania  and  States  near 
by,  who,  receiving  no  answer  to  their  telegrams, 
have  decided  to  come  on  in  person.  They  wan- 
der over  the  town  in  their  search,  at  first  franti- 
cally asking  everybody  right  and  left  if  they  have 
heard  of  their  missing  friends.  Generally  no- 
body has  heard  of  them,  or  some  one  may  re- 
member that  he  saw  a  man  who  said  that  he  hap- 
pened to  see  a  body  pulled  out  at  Nineveh  or 
Cambria  City,  or  somewhere,  that  looked  like  Jack 
So-and-So,  naming  the  missing  one.  At  the 
morgues  the  inquirer  is  told  that  about  four  hun- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

dred  unidentified  dead  have  already  been  buried, 
and  on  the  fences  before  the  morgues  and  on  the 
outside  house  walls  of  the  buildings  themselves 
he  reads  several  hundred  such  notices  as  these,  of 
bodies  still  unclaimed:— 

A  woman,  dark  hair,  blue  eyes,  blue  waist,  dark 
dress,  clothing  of  fine  quality;  a  single  bracelet 
on  the  left  arm ;  age,  about  twenty-three. 

An  old  lady,  clothing  undistinguishable,  but 
containing  a  purse  with  twenty-seven  dollars  and 
a  small  key. 

A  young  man,  fair  complexion,  light  hair,  gray 
eyes,  dark  blue  suit,  white  shirt ;  believed  to  have 
been  a  guest  at  the  Hurlburt  House. 

A  female ;  supposed  to  belong  to  the  Salvation 
Army. 

A  man  about  thirty-five  years  old,  dark-com- 
plexioned, brown  hair,  brown  moustache,  light 
clothes,  left  leg  a  little  shortened. 

A  boy  about  ten  years  old,  found  with  a  little 
girl  of  nearly  same  age;  boy  had  hold  of  girl's 
hand;  both  light-haired  and  fair-complexioned, 
and  girl  had  long  curls;  boy  had  on  dark  clothes, 
and  girl  a  gingham  dress. 

The  people  looking  for  their  friends  had  lots  of 
money,  but  money  is  of  no  use  now  in  Johnstown. 
It  cannot  hire  teams  to  go  up  along  the  Cone- 
maugh  River,  where  lots  of  people  want  to  go; 
it  cannot  hire  men  as  searchers,  for  all  the  people 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

in  Johnstown  not  on  business  of  their  own  are 
digging  in  the  ruins  ;  it  cannot  even  buy  food,  for 
what  little  food  there  is  in  Johnstown  is  practically 
free,  and  a  good  square  meal  cannot  be  procured 
for  love  nor  money  anywhere.  Under  these  dis- 
couragements many  people  are  giving  up  the 
search  and  going  home,  either  giving  their  rela- 
tives up  for  dead  or  waiting  for  them  to  turn  up, 
still  maintaining  the  hope  that  they  are  alive. 

Johnstown  at  night  now  is  a  wild  spectacle. 
The  major  part  of  the  town  is  enveloped  in  dark- 
ness, and  lights  of  all  colors  flare  out  all  around, 
so  that  the  city  looks  something  like  a  night  scene 
in  a  railroad  yard.  The  burning  of  immense 
piles  of  debris  is  continued  at  night,  and  the  red 
glare  of  the  flames  at  the  foot  of  the  hills  seems 
like  witch-fires  at  the  mouth  of  caverns.  The 
camp-fires  of  the  military  on  the  hills  above  the 
Conemaugh  burn  brightly.  Volumes  of  smoke 
pour  up  all  over  the  town.  Along  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  gangs  of  men  are  working  all 
night  long  by  electric  light,  and  the  engines,  with 
their  great  headlights  and  roaring  steam,  go  about 
continually.  Below  the  railroad  bridge  stretches 
away  the  dark,  sullen  mass  of  the  drift,  with  its 
freight  of  human  bodies  beyond  estimate.  Now 
and  then,  from  the  headquarters  of  the  newspaper 
men,  can  be  heard  the  military  guards  on  their 
posts  challenging  passers-by. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 


IT  is  now  a  week  since  the  flood,  and  Johns- 
town is  a  cross  between  a  military  camp  and  a 
new  mining  town,  and  is  getting  more  so  every 
day.  It  has  all  the  unpleasant  and  disagreeable 
features  of  both,  relieved  by  the  pleasures  of 
neither.  Everywhere  one  goes  soldiers  are  loung- 
ing about  or  standing  guard  on  all  roads  leading 
into  the  city,  and  stop  every  one  who  cannot  show 
a  pass.  There  is  a  mass  of  tents  down  in  the 
centre  of  the  ruins,  and  others  are  scattered  ev- 
erywhere on  every  cleared  space  beside  the  rail- 
road tracks  and  on  the  hills  about  A  corps  of 
engineers  is  laying  pontoon  bridges  over  the 
streams,  pioneers  are  everywhere  laying  out  new 
camps,  erecting  mess  sheds  and  other  rude  build- 
ings, and  clearing  away  obstructions  to  the  ready 
passage  of  supply  wagons.  Mounted  men  are 
continually  galloping  about  from  place  to  place 
carrying  orders.  At  headquarters  about  the 

(370) 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


371 


Pennsylvania  Railroad  depot  there  are  dozens  of 
petty  officers  in  giddy  gold  lace,  and  General 
Hastings,  General  Wiley,  and  a  few  others  in 
dingy  clothes,  sitting  about  the  shady  part  of  the 
platform  giving  and  receiving  orders.  The  oc- 
casional thunder  of  dynamite  sounds  like  the 
boom  of  distant  cannon  defending  some  outpost. 
Supplies  are  heaped  up  about  headquarters,  and 
are  being  unloaded  from  cars  as  rapidly  as  loco- 
motives can  push  them  up  and  get  the  empty  cars 
out  of  the  way  again.  From  cooking  tents  smoke 
and  savory  odors  go  up  all  day,  mingled  with  the 
odor  carbolic  from  hospital  tents  scattered  about. 
It  is  very  likely  that  within  a  short  time  this  mili- 
tary appearance  will  be  greatly  increased  by  the 
arrival  of  another  regiment  and  the  formal  declar- 
ation of  martial  law. 

On  the  other  hand  the  town's  resemblance  to 
a  new  mining  camp  is  just  as  striking.  Every- 
thing is  muddy  and  desolate.  There  are  no 
streets  nor  any  roads,  except  the  rough  routes 
that  the  carts  wore  out  for  themselves  across  the 
sandy  plain.  Rough  sheds  and  shanties  are  going 
up  on  every  hand.  There  are  no  regular  stores, 
but  cigars  and  drink — none  intoxicating,  how- 
ever— are  peddled  from  rough  board  counters. 
Railroads  run  into  the  camp  over  uneven,  crooked 
tracks.  Trains  of  freight  cars  are  constantly  ar- 
riving and  being  shoved  off  onto  all  sorts  of  sid- 


372 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


ings,  or  even  into  the  mud,  to  get  them  out  of  the 
way.  Everybody  wears  his  trousers  in  his  boots, 
and  is  muddy,  ragged,  and  unshaven.  Men  with 
picks  and  shovels  are  everywhere  delving  or  min- 
ing for  something  that  a  few  days  ago  was  more 
precious  than  gold,  though  really  valueless  now. 
Occasionally  they  make  a  find  and  gather  around 
to  inspect  it  as  miners  might  a  nugget.  All  it 
needs  to  complete  the  mining  camp  aspect  of  the 
place  is  a  row  of  gambling  hells  in  full  blast  un- 
der the  temporary  electric  lights  that  gaudily  il- 
luminate the  centre  of  the  town. 

Matters  are  becoming  very  well  systematized, 
both  in  the  military  and  the  mining  way.  Martial 
law  could  be  imposed  to-day  with  very  little  in- 
convenience to  any  one.  The  guard  about  the 
town  is  very  well  kept,  and  the  loafers,  bummers, 
and  thieves  are  being  pretty  well  cleared  out. 
The  Grand  Army  men  have  thoroughly  organized 
the  work  of  distributing  supplies  to  the  sufferers 
by  the  flood,  the  refugees,  and  contraband  of  this 
camp. 

The  contractors  who  are  clearing  up  the  debris 
have  their  thousands  of  men  well  in  hand,  and 
are  getting  good  work  out  of  them,  considering 
the  conditions  under  which  the  men  have  to  live, 
with  insufficient  food,  poor  shelter,  and  other 
serious  impediments  to  physical  effectiveness. 
All  the  men  except  those  on  the  gorge  above 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

the  bridge  have  been  working  amid  the  heaps 
of  ruined  buildings  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
city.  The  first  endeavor  has  been  to  open  the 
old  streets  in  which  the  debris  was  heaped  as 
high  as  the  house-tops.  Fair  progress  has  been 
made,  but  there  are  weeks  of  work  at  it  yet.  Only 
one  or  two  streets  are  so  far  cleared  that  the  pub- 
lic can  use  them.  No  one  but  the  workmen  are 
allowed  in  the  others. 

Up  Stony  Creek  Gap,  above  the  contractors, 
the  United  States  Army  engineers  began  work  on 
Friday  under  command  of  Captain  Sears,  who 
is  here  as  the  personal  representative  of  the 
Secretary  of  War.  The  engineers,  Captain  Berg- 
land's  company  from  Willet's  Point,  and  Lieuten- 
ant Riddle's  company  from  West  Point,  arrived 
on  Friday  night,  having  been  since  Tuesday  on  the 
road  from  New  York.  Early  in  the  morning  they 
went  to  work  to  bridge  Stony  Creek,  and  unload- 
ed and  launched  their  heavy  pontoons  and  strung 
them  across  the  streams  with  a  rapidity  and  skill 
that  astonished  the  natives,  who  had  mistaken 
them,  in  their  coarse,  working  uniforms  of  over- 
all stuff,  for  a  fresh  gang  of  laborers.  The  en- 
gineers, when  there  are  bridges  enough  laid, 
may  be  set  at  other  work  about  town.  They  have 
a  camp  of  their  own  on  the  outskirts  of  the  place. 
There  are  more  constables,  watchmen,  special 
policemen,  and  that  sort  of  thing  in  Johnstown 


TIIE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

than  in  any  three  cities  of  its  size  in  the  country. 
Naturally  there  is  great  difficulty  in  equipping 
them.  Badges  were  easily  provided  by  the  clip- 
ping out  of  stars  from  pieces  of  tin,  but  every 
one  had  to  look  out  for  himself  when  it  came  to 
clubs.  Everything  goes,  from  a  broomstick  to  a 
base  ball  bat.  The  bats  are  especially  popular. 

"I'd  like  to  get  the  job  of  handling  your  paper 
here,"  said  a  young  fellow  to  a  Pittsburgh  news- 
paper man.  "  You'll  have  to  get  some  newsman 
to  do  it  anyhow,  for  your  old  men  have  gone 
down,  and  I  and  my  partner  are  the  only  news- 
men in  Johnstown  above  ground." 

The  newsdealing  business  is  not  the  only  one 
of  which  something  like  that  is  true. 

There  has  been  a  great  scarcity  of  cooking 
utensils  ever  since  the  flood.  It  not  only  is  very 
inconvenient  to  the  people,  but  tends  to  the  waste 
of  a  good  deal  of  food.  The  soldiers  are  growl- 
ing bitterly  over  their  commissary  department. 
They  claim  that  bread,  and  cheese,  and  coffee  are 
about  all  they  get  to  eat. 

The  temporary  electric  lights  have  now  been 
strung  all  along  the  railroad  tracks  and  through 
the  central  part  of  the  ruins,  so  that  the  place 
after  dark  is  really  quite  brilliant  seen  from  a  dis- 
tance, especially  when  to  the  electric  display  is 
added  the  red  glow  in  the  mist  and  smoke  of 
huge  bonfires. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Anybody  who  has  been  telegraphing  to  Johns- 
town this  week  and  getting  no  answers,  would 
understand  the  reason  for  the  lack  of  answers  if 
he  could  see  the  piles  of  telegrams  that  are  sent 
out  here  by  train  from  Pittsburgh.  Four  thou- 
sand came  in  one  batch  on  Thursday.  Half  of 
them  are  still  undelivered,  and  yet  there  is  proba- 
bly no  place  in  the  country  where  the  Western 
Union  Company  is  doing  better  work  than  here. 
The  flood  destroyed  not  only  the  company's 
offices,  but  the  greater  part  of  their  wires  in  this 
part  of  the  country.  The  office  they  established 
here  is  in  a  little  shanty  with  no  windows  and 
only  one  door  which  won't  close,  and  it  handles 
an  amount  of  outgoing  matter,  daily,  that  would 
swamp  nine-tenths  of  the  city  offices  in  the  coun- 
try. Incoming  business  is  now  received  in  con- 
siderable quantities,  but  for  several  days  so  great 
was  the  pressure  of  outgoing  business  that  no 
attempt  was  made  to  receive  any  dispatches. 
The  whole  effort  of  the  office  has  been  to  handle 
press  matter,  and  well  they  have  done  it.  But 
there  will  be  no  efficient  delivery  service  for  a 
long  time.  The  old  messenger  boys  are  all 
drowned,  and  the  other  boys  who  might  make 
messenger  boys  are  also  most  of  them  drowned, 
so  that  the  raw  material  for  creating  a  service  is 
very  scant.  Besides  that,  nobody  knows  nowa- 
days where  any  one  else  lives. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

The  amateur  and  professional  photographers 
who  have  overrun  the  town  for  the  last  few  days 
came  to  grief  on  Friday.  A  good  many  of  them 
were  arrested  by  the  soldiers,  placed  under  a 
guard,  taken  down  to  the  Stony  Creek  and  set 
to  lugging  logs  and  timbers.  Among  those  ar- 
rested were  several  of  the  newspaper  photog- 
raphers, and  these  General  Hastings  ordered  re- 
leased when  he  heard  of  their  arrest.  The  others 
were  made  to  work  for  half  a  day.  They  were  a 
mad  and  disgusted  lot,  and  they  vowed  all  sorts 
of  vengeance.  It  does  seem  that  some  notice  to 
the  effect  that  photographers  were  not  permitted 
in  Johnstown  should  have  been  posted  before  the 
men  were  arrested.  The  photographers  all  had 
passes  in  regular  form,  but  the  soldiers  refused 
even  to  look  at  these. 

More  sightseers  got  through  the  guards  at 
Bolivar  on  Friday  night,  and  came  to  Johnstown 
on  the  last  train.  Word  was  telegraphed  ahead, 
and  the  soldiers  met  them  at  the  train,  put  them 
under  arrest,  kept  them  over  night,  and  in  the 
morning  they  were  set  to  work  in  clearing  up  the 
ruins. 

The  special  detail  of  workmen  who  have  been 
at  work  looking  up  safes  in  the  ruins  and  seeing 
that  they  were  taken  care  of,  reports  that  none  of 
the  safes  have  been  broken  open  or  otherwise  in- 
terfered with.  The  committee  on  valuables  re- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD, 


377 


ports  that  quantities  of  jewelry  and  money  are 
being1  daily  turned  into  them  by  people  who  have 
found  them  in  the  ruins.  Often  the  people  sur- 
rendering this  stuff  are  evidently  very  poor  them- 
selves. The  committee  believes  that  as  a  general 
thing  the  people  are  dealing  very  honestly  in  this 
matter  of  treasure-trove  from  the  ruins. 

Three  car-loads  of  coffins  was  part  of  the  load 
of  one  freight  train.  Coffins  are  scattered  every- 
where about  the  city.  Scores  of  them  seem  to 
have  been  set  down  and  forgotten.  They  are 
used  as  benches,  and  even,  it  is  said,  as  beds. 

Grandma  Mary  Seter,  aged  eighty-three  years, 
a  well-known  character  in  Johnstown,  who  was  in 
the  water  until  Saturday,  and  who,  wnen  rescued, 
had  her  right  arm  so  injured  that  amputation  at 
the  shoulder  was  necessary,  is  doing  finely  at  the 
hospital,  and  the  doctors  expect  to  have  her 
around  again  before  long. 

One  enterprising  man  has  opened  a  shop  for 
the  sale  of  relics  of  the  disaster,  and  is  doing  a 
big  business.  Half  the  people  here  are  relic 
cranks.  Everything  goes  as  a  relic,  from  a 
horseshoe  to  a  two-foot  section  of  iron  pipe. 
Buttons  and  little  things  like  that,  that  can  easily 
be  carried  off,  are  the  most  popular. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII. 


A  MANTLE  of  mist  hung  low  over  the  Cone- 
maugh  Valley  when  the  people  of  Johnstown  rose 
on  Sunday  morning,  June  9th  ;  but  about  the  time 
the  two  remaining  church  bells  began  to  toll,  the 
sun's  rays  broke  through  the  fog,  and  soon  the 
sky  was  clear  save  for  a  few  white  clouds  which 
sailed  lazily  to  the  Alleghenies.  Never  in  the 
history  of  Johnstown  did  congregations  attend 
more  impressive  church  services.  Some  of  them 
were  held  in  the  open  air,  others  in  half-ruined 
buildings,  and  one  only  in  a  church.  The  cere- 
monies were  deeply  solemn  and  touching.  Early 
in  the  forenoon  German  Catholics  picked  their 
way  through  the  wreck  to  the  parsonage  of  St. 
Joseph's,  where  Fathers  Kesbernan  and  Aid  said 
four  masses.  Next  to  the  parsonage  there  was  a 
great  breach  in  the  walls  made  by  the  flood,  and 
one-half  of  the  parsonage  had  been  carried  away. 
At  one  end  of  the  pastor's  reception-room  had 

(378) 


THE  JOHNS 7  O IV .V  J  L  OOD.  ,  ?,  l 

been  placed  a  temporary  altar  lighted  by  a  solitary 
candle.  There  were  white  roses  upon  it,  while 
from  the  walls,  above  the  muddy  stains,  hung 
pictures  of  the  Immaculate  Conception,  the  Cru- 
cifixion, and  the  Virgin  Mary.  The  room  was 
filled  with  worshipers,  and  the  people  spread 
out  into  the  lateral  hall  hanging  over  the  cellar 
washed  bare  of  its  covering.  No  chairs  or  benches 
were  in  the  room.  There  was  a  deep  hush  as  the 
congregation  knelt  upon  the  damp  floors,  silently 
saying  their  prayers.  With  a  dignified  and  serene 
demeanor,  the  priest  went  through  the  services  of 
his  church,  while  the  people  before  him  were  mo- 
tionless, the  men  with  bowed  heads,  the  women 
holding  handkerchiefs  to  their  faces. 

Back  of  this  church,  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  there 
gathered  another  congregation  of  Catholics.  Their 
church  and  parsonage  and  chapel  had  all  been  de- 
stroyed, and  they  met  in  a  yard  near  their  cemetery. 
A  pretty  arbor,  covered  with  vines,  ran  back  from 
the  street,  and  beneath  this  stood  their  priest, 
Father  Tahney,  who  had  worked  with  them  over 
a  quarter  of  a  century.  His  hair  was  white,  but  he 
stood  erect  as  he  talked  to  his  people.  Before 
him  was  a  white  altar.  This,  too,  was  lighted 
with  a  single  candle.  The  people  stood  before 
him  and  on  each  side,  reverently  kneeling  on  the. 
grass  as  they  prayed.  Three  masses  were  said 
by  Father  Tahney  and  by  Father  Matthews,  of 

22 


382  Tl{R  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

Washington,  and  then  the  white-haired  priest 
spoke  a  few  words  of  encouragement  to  his  list- 
eners. He  urged  them  to  make  a  manful  strug- 
gle to  rebuild  their  homes,  to  assist  one  another 
in  their  distress,  and  to  be  grateful  to  all  Ameri- 
cans for  the  helping  hand  extended  to  them. 
Other  Catholic  services  were  held  at  the  St.  Co- 
lumba's  Church,  in  Cambria,  where  Father  Trout- 
wein,  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  Fathers  Davin  and 
Smith  said  mass  and  addressed  the  congregation. 
Father  Smith  urged  them  not  to  sell  their  lands 
to  those  who  were  speculating  in  men's  misery, 
but  to  be  courageous  until  the  city  should  rise 
again. 

At  the -Pennsylvania  station  a  meeting  was  held 
on  the  embankment  overlooking  the  ruined  part 
of  the  town.  The  services  were  conducted  by  the 
Rev.  Mr.  McGuire,  chaplain  of  the  I4th  Regiment. 
The  people  sang  "  Come,  Thou  Fount  of  Every 
Blessing,"  and  then  Mr.  McGuire  read  the  psalm 
beginning  "I  will  bless  the  Lord  at  all  times." 
James  Fulton,  manager  of  the  Cambria  Iron 
Works,  spoke  encouraging  words.  He  assured 
them  that  the  works  would  be  rebuilt,  and  that 
the  eight  thousand  employes  would  be  cared  for. 
Houses  would  be  built  for  them  and  employment 
given  to  all  in  restoring  the  works.  There  was  a 
strained  look  on  men's  faces  when  he  told  them 
in  a  low  voice  that  he  held  the  copy  of  a  report 


////•;  'jnuA'X'iowx  J-LUOD. 


which  he  had  drawn  up  on  the  dam,  calling-  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  it  was  extremely  dangerous 
to  the  people  living  in  the  valley. 

One  of  the  peculiar  things  a  stranger  notices 
in  Johnstown  is  the  comparatively  small  number  of 
women  seen  in  the  place.  Of  the  throngs  who  walk 
about  the  streets  searching  for  dead  friends,  there 
is  not  one  woman  to  ten  men.  Occasionally  a  little 
group  of  two  or  three  women  with  sad  faces  will 
pick  their  way  about,  looking  for  the  morgues. 
There  are  a  few  Sisters  of  Charity,  in  their  black 
robes,  seen  upon  the  streets,  and  in  the  parts  of 
the  town  not  totally  destroyed  the  usual  num- 
ber of  women  are  seen  in  the  houses  and  yards. 
But,  as  a  rule,  women  are  a  rarity  in  Johnstown 
now.  This  is  not  a  natural  peculiarity  of  Johns- 
town, nor  a  mere  coincidence,  but  a  fact  with  a 
dreadful  reason  behind  it.  There  are  so  many 
more  men  than  women  among  the  living  in  Johns- 
town now,  because  there  are  so  many  more  women 
than  men  among  the  dead.  Of  the  bodies  re- 
covered there  are  at  least  two  women  for  every 
man.  Besides  the  fact  that  their  natural  weak- 
ness made  them  an  easier  prey  to  the  flood,  the 
hour  at  which  the  disaster  came  was  one  when  the 
women  would  most  likely  be  in  their  homes  and 
the  men  at  work  in  the  open  air  or  in  factory 
yards,  from  which  escape  was  easy. 

Children  also  are  rarely  seen  about  the  town, 


THE  JOHNSTOWN-  FLOOD. 

and  for  a  similar  reason.  They  are  all  dead. 
There  is  never  a  group  of  the  dead  discovered 
that  does  not  contain  from  one  to  three  or  four 
children  for  every  grown  person.  Generally  the 
children  are  in  the  arms  of  the  grown  persons, 
and  often  little  toys  and  trinkets  clasped  in  their 
hands  indicate  that  the  children  were  caught  up 
while  at  play,  and  carried  as  far  as  possible 
toward  safety. 

Johnstown  when  rebuilt  will  be  a  city  of  many 
widowers  and  few  children.  In  turning  a  school- 
house  into  a  morgue  the  authorities  probably  did 
a  wiser  thing  than  they  thought.  It  will  be  a  long 
time  before  the  school-house  will  be  needed  for 
its  original  purpose. 

The  miracle,  as  it  is  called,  that  happened  at 
the  Church  of  the  Immaculate  Conception,  has 
caused  a  tremendous  sensation.  A  large  number 
of  persons  will  testify  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
event,  and,  to  put  it  mildly,  the  circumstances  are 
really  remarkable.  The  devotions  in  honor  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  celebrated  daily  during  the  month 
of  May  were  in  progress  on  that  Friday  when 
the  water  descended  on  Cambria  City.  The 
church  was  filled  with  people  at  the  time,  but 
when  the  noise  of  the  flood  was  heard  the  con- 
gregation hastened  to  get  out  of  the  way.  They 
succeeded  as  far  as  escaping  from  the  interior  is 
concerned,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  church  was 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

partially  submerged,  the  water  reaching  fifteen 
feet  up  the  sides  and  swirling  around  the  corners 
furiously.  The  building  was  badly  wrecked,  the 
benches  were  torn  out,  and  in  general  the  entire 
structure,  both  inside  and  outside,  was  fairly  dis- 
mantled. Yesterday  morning,  when  an  entrance 
was  forced  through  the  blocked  doorway  the  ruin 
appeared  to  be  complete.  One  object  alone  had 
escaped  the  water's  wrath.  The  statue  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  that  had  been  decorated  and 
adorned  because  of  the  May  devotions,  was  as 
unsullied  as  the  day  it  was  made.  The  flowers, 
the  wreaths,  the  lace  veil  were  undisturbed  and 
unsoiled,  although  the  marks  on  the  wall  showed 
that  the  surface  of  the  water  had  risen  above  the 
statue  to  a  height  of  fifteen  feet,  while  the  statue 
nevertheless  had  been  saved  from  all  contact  with 
the  liquid.  Every  one  who  has  seen  the  statue 
and  its  surroundings  is  firmly  convinced  that  the 
incident  was  a  miraculous  one,  and  even  to  the 
most  skeptical  the  affair  savors  of  the  super- 
natural. 

A  singular  feature  of  the  great  flood  was  dis- 
covered at  the  great  stone  viaduct  about  halfway 
between  Mineral  Point  and  South  Fork.  At 
Mineral  Point  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  is  on 
the  south  side  of  the  river,  although  the  town  is 
on  the  north  side.  About  a  mile  and  a  half  up 
the  stream  there  was  a  viaduct  built  of  very  solid 


386  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

masonry.  It  was  originally  built  for  the  old  Port- 
age Road.  It  was  seventy-eight  feet  above  the 
ordinary  surface  of  the  water.  On  this  viaduct 
the  railroad  tracks  crossed  to  the  north  side  of 
the  river  and  on  that  side  ran  into  South  Fork, 
two  miles  farther  up.  It  is  the  general  opinion 
of  engineers  that  this  strong  viaduct  would  have 
stood  against  the  gigantic  wave  had  it  not  been 
blown  up  by  dynamite.  But  at  South  Fork  there 
was  a  dynamite  magazine  which  was  picked  up 
by  the  flood  and  shot  down  the  stream  at  the  rate 
of  twenty  miles  an  hour.  It  struck  the  stone 
viaduct  and  exploded.  The  roar  of  the  flood 
was  tremendous,  but  the  noise  of  this  explosion 
was  heaH  by  farmers  on  the  Evanston  Road, 
two  miles  and  a  half  away.  Persons  living  on 
the  mountain  sides,  in  view  of  the  river,  and  who 
saw  the  explosion,  say  that  the  stones  of  the  via- 
duct at  the  point  where  the  magazine  struck  it, 
were  thrown  into  the  air  to  the  height  of  two 
hundred  feet.  An  opening  was  made,  and  the 
flood  of  death  swept  through  on  its  awful  errand. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

IT  is  characteristic  of  American  hopefulness  and 
energy  that  before  work  was  fairly  begun  on 
clearing  away  the  wreck  of  the  old  city,  plans 
were  being  prepared  for  the  new  one  that  should 
arise,  Phcenix-like,  above  its  grave.  If  the  future 
policy  of  the  banks  and  bankers  of  Johnstown  is 
to  be  followed  by  the  merchants  and  manufac- 
turers of  the  city  the  prospects  of  a  magnificent 
city  rising  from  the  present  ruins  are  of  the 
brightest.  James  McMillen,  president  of  the 
First  National  and  Johnstown  Savings  Banks, 
said : 

"  The  loss  sustained  by  the  First  National  Bank 
will  be  merely  nominal.  It  did  a  general  com- 
mercial business  and  very  little  investing  in  the 
way  of  mortgages.  When  the  flood  came  the  cash 
on  hand  and  all  our  valuable  securities  and  papers 
were  locked  in  the  safe  and  were  in  no  way 
affected  by  the  water.  The  damage  to  the  build- 
ing itself  will  be  comparatively  small.  Our  capi- 
tal was  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  while  our 

387 


THE  JO HXSTOWN  FLOOD. 

surplus  was  upwards  of  forty  thousand  dollars. 
The  depositors  of  this  bank  are,  therefore,  not 
worrying  themselves  about  our  ability  to  meet  all 
demands  that  may  be  made  upon  us  by  them. 
The  bank  will  open  up  for  business  within  a  few 
days  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

"As  to  the  Johnstown  Savings  Bank  it  had. 
probably  $200,000  invested  in  mortgages  on 
property  in  Johnstown,  but  the  wisdom  of  our 
policy  in  the  past  in  making  loans  has  proven  of 
great  value  to  us  in  the  present  emergency.  Since 
we  first  began  business  we  have  refused  to  make 
loans  to  parties  on  property  where  the  lot  itself 
would  not  be  of  sufficient  value  to  indemnify  us 
against  loss  in  case  of  the  destruction  of  the 
building.  If  a  man  owned  a  lot  worth  $2,000  and 

o 

had  on  it  a  building  worth  $100,000  we  would 
refuse  to  loan  over  the  $2,000  on  the  property. 
The  result  is  that  the  lots  on  which  the  buildings 
stood  in  Johnstown,  on  which  $200,000  of  our 
money  is  loaned,  are  worth  double  the  amount, 
probably,  that  we  have  invested  in  them. 

"  What  will  be  the  effect  of  the  flood  on  the 
value  of  lots  in  Johnstown  proper  ?  Well,  in- 
stead of  decreasing,  they  have  already  advanced 
in  value.  This  will  bring  outside  capital  to  Johns- 
town, and  a  real  estate  boom  is  bound  to  follow 
in  the  wake  of  this  destruction.  All  the  people 
want  is  an  assurance  that  the  banks  are  safe  and 


THE  J 0//NS TO WN  FLOOD.  ^ 8 9 

will  open  up  for  business  at  once.  With  that 
feeling  they  have  started  to  work  with  a  vim.  We 
have  in  this  bank  $300,000  invested  in  Govern- 
ment bonds  and  other  securities  that  can  be  con- 
verted into  cash  on  an  hour's  notice.  We  propose 
to  keep  these  things  constantly  before  our  busi- 
ness men  as  an  impetus  to  rebuilding  our  princi- 
pal business  blocks  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  What  do  you  think  of  the  idea  projected  by 
Captain  W.  R.  Jones,  to  dredge  and  lower  the 
river  bed  about  thirty  feet  and  adding  seventy  per 
cent,  to  its  present  width,  as  a  precautionary 
measure  against  future  washouts  ?" 

"I  not  only  heartily  indorse  that  scheme,  but 
have  positive  assurance  from  other  leading  busi- 
ness men  that  the  idea  will  be  carried  out,  as  it 
certainly  should  be,  the  moment  the  work  of 
cleaning  away  the  debris  is  completed.  Besides 
that,  a  scheme  is  on  foot  to  get  a  charter  for  the 
city  of  Johnstown  which  will  embrace  all  those 
surrounding  boroughs.  In  the  event  of  that  be- 
ing done,  and  I  am  certain  it  will  be,  the  plan  of 
the  city  will  be  entirely  changed  and  made  to  cor- 
respond with  the  best  laid-out  cities  in  the  country. 
In  ten  years  Johnstown  will  be  one  of  the  prettiest 
and  busiest  cities  in  the  world,  and  nothing  can 
prevent  it.  The  streets  will  be  widened  and  prob- 
ably made  to  start  from  a  common  centre,  some- 
thing after  the  fashion  of  Washington  City,  with  a 


390  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

little  more  regard  for  the  value  of  property.  With 
the  Cambria  Iron  Company,  the  Gautier  Steel 
Works,  and  other  manufactories,  as  well  as  yearly 
increasing  railroad  facilities,  Johnstown  has  a  start 
which  will  grow  in  a  short  time  to  enormous  pro- 
portions. From  a  real  estate  standpoint  the  flood 
has  been  a  benefit  beyond  a  doubt.  Another  ad- 
dition to  the  city  will  be  made  in  the  shape  of  an 
immense  water-main  to  connect  with  a  magnifi- 
cent reservoir  of  the  finest  water  in  the  world  to 
be  located  in  the  mountains  up  Stony  Creek  for 
supplying  the  entire  city  as  contemplated  in  the 
proposed  new  charter.  This  plant  was  well  under 
way  when  the  flood  came,  and  about  ten  thousand 
dollars  had  already  been  expended  on  it  which 
has  been  lost." 

Mr.  John  Roberts,  the  surviving  partner  of  the 
banking-house  of  John  Dibert  &  Company,  said : 

"  Aside  from  the  loss  to  our  own  building  we 
have  come  out  whole  and  entire.  We  had  no 
money  invested  in  mortgages  in  Johnstown  that 
is  not  fully  indemnified  by  the  lots  themselves. 
Most  of  our  money  is  invested  in  property  in 
Somerset  County,  where  Mr.  Dibert  was  raised. 
We  will  exert  every  influence  in  our  power  to 
place  the  city  on  a  better  footing  than  was  ever 
before.  The  plan  of  raising  the  city  or  lowering 
the  bed  of  the  river  as  well  as  widening  its  banks 
will  surely  be  carried  out.  In  addition,  I  think 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

the  idea  of  changing  the  plan  of  the  city  and  em- 
bracing Johnstown  and  the  surrounding  buroughs 
in  one  large  city  will  be  one  of  the  greatest  bene- 
fits the  flood  could  have  wrought  to  the  future 
citizens  of  Johnstown  and  the  Conemough 
Valley. 

"I  have  been  chairman  of  our  Finance  Com- 
mittee of  Councils  for  ten  years  past,  and  I  know 
the  trouble  we  have  had  with  our  streets  and 
alleys  and  the  necessity  of  a  great  change.  In 
order  to  put  the  city  in  the  proper  shape  to  insure 
commercial  growth  and  topographical  beauty, 
we  will  be  ready  for  business  in  a  few  days,  and 
enough  money  will  be  put  into  circulation  in  the 
valley  to  give  the  people  encouragement  in  the 
work  of  rebuilding." 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

AMONG  the  travelers  who  were  in  or  near 
the  Conemaugh  Valley  at  the  time  of  the 
flood,  and  who  thus  narrowly  escaped  the  doom 
that  swallowed  up  thousands  of  their  fellow-mor- 
tals, was  Mr.  William  Henry  Smith,  General 
Manager  of  the  Associated  Press.  He  remained 
there  for  some  time  and  did  valuable  work  in  di- 
recting the  operations  of  news-gatherers  and  in 
the  general  labors  of  relief. 

The  wife  and  daughter  of  Mr.  E.  W.  Halford, 
private  secretary  to  President  Harrison,  were 
also  there.  They  made  their  way  to  Washington 
on  Thursday,  to  Mr.  Halford's  inexpressible  re- 
lief, they  having  at  first  been  reported  among  the 
lost.  On  their  arrival  at  the  Capital  they  went  at 
once  to  the  Executive  Mansion,  where  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Executive  household  were  awaiting 
them  with  great  interest.  The  ladies  lost  all  their 
baggage,  but  were  thankful  for  their  almost 
miraculous  delivery  from  the  jaws  of  death. 
Mrs.  Harrison's  eyes  were  suffused  with  tears  as 
39? 


7  HE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD. 

she  listened  to  the  dreadful  narrative.  The  Presi- 
dent was  also  deeply  moved.  From  the  first 
tidings  of  the  dire  calamity  his  thoughts  have 
been  absorbed  in  sympathy  and  desire  to  alleviate 
the  sufferings  of  the  devastated  region.  The 
manner  of  the  escape  of  Mrs.  Halford  and  her 
daughter  has  already  been  told.  When  the  alarm 
was  given,  she  and  her  daughter  rushed  with  the 
other  passengers  out  of  the  car  and  took  refuge 
on  the  mountain  side  by  climbing  up  the  rocky 
excavation  near  the  track.  Mrs.  Halford  was  in 
delicate  health  owing  to  bronchial  troubles.  She 
has  borne  up  well  under  the  excitement,  exposure, 
fatigue,  and  horror  of  her  experiences. 

Mrs.  George  W.  Childs  was  also  reported 
among  the  lost,  but  incorrectly.  Mr.  Childs  re- 
ceived word  on  Thursday  for  the  first  time  di- 
rect from  his  wife,  who  was  on  her  way  West  to 
visit  Miss  Kate  Drexel  when  detained  by  the 
flood.  Indirectly  he  had  heard  she  was  all  right. 
The  telegram  notified  him  that  Mrs.  Childs  was 
at  Altoona,  and  could  not  move  either  way,  but 
was  perfectly  safe. 

George  B.  Roberts,  President  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railway  Company,  was  obliged  to  issue  the 
following  card  :  "  In  consequence  of  the  terrible 
calamity  that  has  fallen  upon  a  community  which 
has  such  close  relations  to  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
way Company,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  B.  Roberts 


3  Q  4  7"#£  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

feel  compelled  to  withdraw  their  invitations  for 
Thursday,  June  6th."  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  E. 
Pugh  also  felt  obliged  to  withdraw  their  invita- 
tions for  Wednesday,  June  5th. 

The  Rev.  J.  A.  Ranney,  of  Kalamazoo,  Mich., 
and  his  wife  were  passengers  on  one  of  the  trains 
wrecked  by  the  Conemaugh  flood.  Mr.  Ranney 
said  : 

"Mrs.  Ranney  and  I  were  on  one  of  the  trains 
at  Conemaugh  when  the  flood  came.  There  was 
but  a  moment's  warning  and  the  disaster  was 
upon  us.  The  occupants  of  our  car  rushed  for 
the  door,  where  Mrs.  Ranney  and  I  became  sepa- 
rated. She  was  one  of  the  first  to  jump,  and  I 
saw  her  run  and  disappear  behind  the  first  house 
in  sight.  Before  I  could  get  out  the  deluge  was 
too  high,  and,  with  a  number  of  others,  I  remained 
in  the  car.  Our  car  was  lifted  up  and  dashed 
against  a  car  loaded  with  stone  and  badly  wrecked, 
but  most  of  the  occupants  of  this  car  were  res- 
cued. As  far  as  I  know  all  who  jumped  from  the 
car  lost  their  lives.  The  remainder  of  the  train 
was  swept  away.  I  searched  for  days  for  Mrs. 
Ranney,  but  could  find  no  trace  of  her.  I  think 
she  perished.  The  mind  cannot  conceive  the 
awful  sight  presented  when  we  first  saw  the  dan- 
ger. The  approaching  wall  of  water  looked  like 
Niagara,  and  huge  engines  were  caught  up  and 
whirled  away  as  if  they  were  mere  wheel-bar- 
rows." 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

D.  B.  Cummins,  of  Philadelphia,  the  President 
of  the  Girard  National  Bank,  was  one  of  the  party 
of  four  which  consisted  of  John  Scott,  Solicitor- 
General  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  ;  Edmund 
Smith,  ex-Vice-President  of  the  same  company  ; 
and  Colonel  Welsh  himself,  who  had  been  stop- 
ping in  the  country  a  few  miles  back  of  Williams- 
port. 

Mr.  Cummins,  in  talking  of  the  condition  of 
things  in  that  vicinity  and  of  his  experience,  said  : 
"We  were  trout-fishing  at  Anderson's  cabin, 
about  fourteen  miles  from  Williamsport,at  the  time 
the  flood  started.  We  went  to  Williamsport,  in- 
tending to  take  a  train  for  Philadelphia.  Of  course, 
when  we  got  there  we  found  everything  in  a  fright- 
ful condition,  and  the  people  completely  disheart- 
ened by  the  flood.  Fortunately  the  loss  of  life 
was  very  slight,  especially  when  compared  with 
the  terrible  disaster  in  Johnstown.  The  loss,  from 
a  financial  standpoint,  will  be  very  great,  for  the 
city  is  completely  inundated,  and  the  lumber 
industry  seriously  crippled.  Besides,  the  stag- 
nation of  business  for  any  length  of  time  produces 
results  which  are  disastrous." 

The  first  passengers  that  came  from  Altoona 
to  New  York  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  since 
the  floods  included  five  members  of  the  "  Night 
Off"  Company,  which  played  in  Johnstown  on 
Thursday  night,  about  whom  considerable  anxiety 
was  felt  for  some  time,  till  E.  A.  Eberle  received 


.,  Q  5  7Y//1   JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

telegrams  ,rom  his  wife,  the  contents  of  wmch  he 
at  once  gave  to  the  press.  Mrs.  Eberle  was 
among  the  five  who  arrived. 

"  No  words  can  tell  the  horrors  of  the  scenes 
we  witnessed,"  she  said  in  answer  to  a  request 
for  an  account  of  her  experiences,  "  and  nothing 
that  has  been  published  can  convey  any  idea  of 
the  awful  havoc  wrought  in  those  few  but  ap- 
parently never-ending  minutes  in  which  the  worst 
of  the  flood  passed  us. 

"  Our  company  left  Johnstown  on  Friday  morn- 
ing. We  only  got  two  miles  away,  as  far  as 
Conemaugh,  when  we  were  stopped  by  a  land- 
slide a  little  way  ahead.  About  noon  we  went  to 
dinner,  and  soon  after  we  came  back  some  of  our 
company  noticed  that  the  flood  had  extended  and 
was  washing  away  the  embankment  on  which  our 
train  stood.  They  called  the  engineer's  attention 
to  the  fact,  and  he  took  the  train  a  few  hundred 
feet  further.  It  was  fortunate  he  did  so,  for  a 
little  while  after  the  embankment  caved  in. 

"  Then  we  could  not  move  forward  or  back- 
ward, as  ahead  was  the  landslide  and  behind  there 
was  no  track.  Even  then  we  were  not  frightened, 
and  it  was  not  till  about  three  o'clock,  when  we 
saw  a  heavy  iron  bridge  go  down  as  if  it  were 
made  of  paper,  that  we  began  to  be  seriously 
alarmed.  Just  before  the  dam  broke  a  gravel 
train  came  tearing  down,  with  the  engine  giving 
out  the  most  awful  shriek  I  ever  heard.  Every 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

one  recognized  that  this  was  a  note  of  warning. 
We  iled  as  hard  as  we  could  run  down  the  em- 
bankment, across  a  ditch,  and  for  a  distance  equal 
to  about  two  blocks  up  the  hillside.  Once  I 
turned  to  look  at  the  vast  wall  of  water,  but  was 
hurried  on  by  my  friends.  When  I  had  gone 
about  the  distance  of  another  block  the  head 
of  the  flood  had  passed  far  away,  and  with  it 
went  houses,  cars,  locomotives,  everything  that  a 
few  minutes  before  had  made  up  a  busy  scene. 
The  wall  of  water  looked  to  be  fifty  feet  high.  It 
was  of  a  deep  yellow  color,  but  the  crest  was  white 
with  foam. 

"  Three  of  us  reached  the  house  of  Mrs- 
William  Wright,  who  took  us  in  and  treated  us 
most  kindly.  I  did  not  take  any  account  of  time, 
but  I  imagine  it  was  about  an  hour  before  the 

e> 

water  ceased  to  rush  past  the  house.  The  con- 
ductor of  our  train,  Charles  A.  Wartham,  behaved 
with  the  greatest  bravery.  He  took  a  crippled 
passenger  on  his  back  in  the  rush  up  the  hill.  A 
floating  house  struck  the  cripple,  carried  him 
away  and  tore  some  of  the  clothes  off  Wartham's 
back,  and  he  managed  to  struggle  on  and  save 
himself.  Our  ride  to  Ebensburg,  sixteen  miles, 
in  a  lumber  wagon  without  springs,  was  trying, 
but  no  one  thought  of  complaining.  Later  in  the 
day  we  were  sent  to  Cresson  and  thence  to 
Altoona." 
23 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

NO  travelers  in  an  upheaved  and  disorganized 
land  push  through  with  more  pluck  and 
courage  than  the  newspaper  correspondents. 
Accounts  have  already  been  given  of  some  of 
their  experiences.  A  writer  in  the  New  York 
Times  thus  told  of  his,  a  week  after  the  events 
described : 

"A  man  who  starts  on  a  journey  on  ten  min- 
utes' notice  likes  the  journey  to  be  short,  with  a 
promise  of  success  and  of  food  and  clothes  at  its 
end.  Starting  suddenly  a  week  ago,  the  Times  s 
correspondent  has  since  had  but  a  small  measure 
of  success,  a  smaller  measure  of  food,  and  for  nights 
no  rest  at  all ;  a  long  tramp  across  the  Blue  Hills 
and  Allegheny  Mountains,  behind  jaded  horses  ; 
helping  to  push  up-hill  the  wagon  they  tried  to  pull 
or  to  lift  the  vehicle  up  and  down  bridges  whose 
approaches  were  torn  away,  or  in  and  out  of  fords 
the  pathways  to  which  had  disappeared ;  and  in 
the  blackness  of  the  night,  scrambling  through  gul- 
lies in  the  pike  road  made  by  the  storm,  paved 
400 


THE  JOHNSTO WN  FLOOD. 

with  sharp  and  treacherous  rocks  and  traversed 
by  swift-running  streams,  whose  roar  was  the  only 
guide  to  their  course.  All  this  prepared  a  weary 
reporter  to  welcome  the  bed  of  straw  he  found  in 
a  Johnstown  stable  loft  last  Monday,  and  on  which 
he  has  reposed  nightly  ever  since. 

"  And  let  me  advise  reporters  and  other  persons 
who  are  liable  to  sudden  missions  to  out-of-the- 
way  places  not  to  wear  patent  leather  shoes. 
They  are  no  good  for  mountain  roads.  This  is 
the  result  of  sad  experience.  Wetness  and  stone 
bruises  are  the  benisons  they  confer  on  feet  that 
tread  rough  paths. 

"The  quarter  past  twelve  train  was  the 
one  boarded  by  the  Timers  correspondent  and 
three  other  reporters  on  their  way  hither  a  week 
ago  Friday  night.  It  was  in  the  minds  of  all  that 
they  would  get  as  far  as  Altoona,  on  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Road,  and  thence  by  wagon  to  this  place. 
But  all  were  mistaken.  At  Philadelphia  we  were 
told  that  there  were  wash-outs  in  many  places  and 
bridges  were  down  everywhere,  so  that  we  would 
be  lucky  if  we  got  even  to  Harrisburg.  This  was 
harrowing  news.  It  caused  such  a  searching  of 
time-tables  and  of  the  map  of  Pennsylvania  as 
those  things  were  rarely  ever  subjected  to  before. 
It  was  at  last  decided  that  if  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  stopped  at  Harrisburg  an  attempt  would 
be  made  to  reach  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail- 


-02  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

road  at  Martinsburg-,  West  Virginia,  by  way  of 
the  Cumberland  Railroad,  a  train  on  which  was 
scheduled  to  leave  Harrisburg  ten  minutes  after 
the  arrival  of  the  Pennsylvania  train. 

"  It  was  only  too  evident  to  us,  long  before  we 
reached  Harrisburg,  that  we  would  not  get  to  the 
West  out  of  that  city.  The  Susquehanna  had 
risen  far  over  its  banks,  and  for  miles  our  train 
ran  slowly  with  the  water  close  to  the  fire-box  of 
the  locomotive  and  over  the  lower  steps  of  the  car 
platform.  At  last  we  reached  the  station.  Sev- 
eral energetic  Philadelphia  reporters  had  come  on 
with  us  from  that  lively  city,  expecting  to  go 
straight  to  Johnstown.  As  they  left  the  train  one 
cried  :  '  Hurrah,  boys,  there's  White.  He'll  know 
all  about  it.'  White  stood  placidly  on  the  steps, 
and  knew  nothing  more  than  that  he  and  several 
other  Philadelphia  reporters,  who  had  started  Fri- 
day night,  had  got  no  further  than  the  Harrisburg 
station,  and  were  in  a  state  of  wonderment,  leav- 
ing them  to  think  our  party  caught. 

"  As  the  Cumberland  Valley  train  was  pulling 
out  of  the  station,  its  conductor,  a  big,  genial  fel- 
low, who  seemed  to  know  everybody  in  the  valley, 
was  loth  to  express  an  opinion  as  to  whether  we 
would  get  to  Martinsburg.  He  would  take  us  as 
far  as  he  could,  and  then  leave  us  to  work  out  our 
own  salvation.  He  could  give  us  no  information 
about  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Road.  Hope  and 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

fear  chased  one  another  in  our  midst ;  hope  that 
trains  were  running  on  that  road,  and  fear  that  it, 
1  too,  had  been  stopped  by  wash-outs.  In  the  lat- 
ter case  it  seemed  to  us  that  we  should  be  com- 
pelled to  return  to  Harrisburg  and  sit  down  to 
think  with  our  Philadelphia  brethren. 

The  Cumberland  Valley  train  took  us  to  Ha- 
gerstown,  and  there  the  big  and  genial  conductor 
told  us  it  would  stay,  as  it  could  not  cross  the 
Potomac  to  reach  Martinsburg.  We  were  twelve 
miles  from  the  Potomac  and  twenty  from  Martins- 
burg.  Fortunately,  a  construction  train  was  go- 
ing to  the  river  to  repair  some  small  wash-outs, 
and  Major  Ives,  the  engineer  of  the  Cumberland 
Valley  Road,  took  us  upon  it,  but  he  smiled  piti- 
fully when  we  told  him  we  were  going  across  the 
bridge. 

" '  Why,  man,'  he  said  to  the  Times  s  corres- 
pondent, '  the  Potomac  is  higher  than  it  was  in 
1877,  and  there's  no  telling  when  the  bridge  will 

go-' 

"  At  the  bridge  was  a  throng  of  country  people 

waiting  to  see  it  go  down,  and  wondering  how 
many  more  blows  it  would  stand  from  foundering 
canal-boats,  washed  out  of  the  Chesapeake  and 
Ohio  Canal,  whose  lines  had  already  disappeared 
under  the  flood.  A  quick  survey  of  the  bridge 
showed  that  its  second  section  was  weakening, 
and  had  already  bent  several  inches,  making  a 
slight  concavity  on  the  upper  side. 


404  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

"  No  time  was  to  be  lost  if  we  were  going  to 
Martinsburg.  The  country  people  murmured 
disapproval,  but  we  went  on  the  bridge,  and  were 
soon  crossing  it  on  the  one-foot  plank  that  served 
for  a  footwalk.  It  was  an  unpleasant  walk.  The 
river  was  roaring  below  us.  To  yield  to  the  fasci- 
nation of  the  desire  to  look  between  the  railroad 
ties  at  the  foaming  water  was  to  throw  away  our 
lives.  Then  that  fear  that  the  tons  of  drift  stuff 
piled  against  the  upper  side  of  the  bridge,  would 
suddenly  throw  it  over,  was  a  cause  of  anything 
but  confidence.  But  we  held  our  breath,  balanced 
ourselves,  measured  our  steps,  and  looked  far 
ahead  at  the  hills  on  the  Western  Virginia 
shore.  At  last  the  firm  embankment  was  reached, 
and  four  reporters  sent  up  one  sigh  of  relief  and 
joy. 

"  Finding  two  teams,  we  were  soon  on  our  way 
to  Martinsburg. 

"  The  Potomac  was  nine  feet  higher  than  it  was 
ever  known  to  be  before,  and  it  was  out  for  more 
than  a  mile  beyond  the  tracks  of  the  Cumberland 
Valley  Railroad  at  Falling  Waters,  where  it  had 
carried  away  several  houses.  This  made  the  route 
to  Martinsburg  twice  as  long  as  it  otherwise 
would  have  been.  To  weary,  anxious  reporters 
it  seemed  four  times  as  long,  and  that  we  should 
never  get  beyond  the  village  of  Falling  Waters.  It 
confronted  us  at  every  turn  of  the  crooked  way, 


THE   JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

until  it  became  a  source  of  pain.  It  is  a  pretty 
place,  but  we  were  yearning  for  Johnstown,  not 
for  rural  beauty. 

"  All  roads  have  an  end,  and  Farmer  Sperow's 
teams  at  last  dragged  us  into  Martinsburg.  Little 
comfort  was  in  store  for  us  there.  No  train  had 
arrived  there  for  more  than  twenty-four  hours. 
Farmer  Sperow  was  called  on  to  take  us  back  to 
the  river,  our  instructions  being  to  cross  the 
bridge  again  and  take  a  trip  over  the  mountains. 
Hope  gave  way  to  utter  despair  when  we  learned 
that  the  bridge  had  fallen  twenty  minutes  after 
our  passage.  We  had  put  ourselves  into  a  pickle. 
Chief  Engineer  Ives  and  his  assistant,  Mr. 
Schoonmaker  joined  us  a  little  while  later.  They 
had  followed  us  across  the  bridge  and  been  cut  off 
also.  They  were  needed  at  Harrisburg,  and  they 
backed  up  our  effort  to  get  a  special  train  to  go 
to  the  Shenandoah  Valley  Road's  bridge,  twenty- 
five  miles  away,  which  was  reported  to  be  yet 
standing. 

"  The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  officials  were  obdu- 
rate. They  did  not  know  enough  about  the  tracks 
to  the  eastward  to  experiment  with  a  train  on 
them  in  the  dark.  They  promised  to  make  up  a 
train  in  the  morning.  Wagons  would  not  take 

o  o 

us  as  soon.  A  drearier  night  was  never  passed 
by  men  with  their  hearts  in  their  work.  Morning 
came  at  last  and  with  it  the  news  that  the  road  to 


406  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

the  east  was  passable  nearly  to  Harper's  Ferry. 
Lots  of  Martinsburg  folks  wanted  to  see  the 
sights  at  the  Ferry,  and  we  had  the  advantage  of 
their  society  on  an  excursion  train  as  farasShen- 
andoah  Junction,  where  Mr.  Ives  had  telegraphed 
for  a  special  to  come  over  and  meet  us  if  the 
bridge  was  standing. 

"The  telegraph  kept  us  informed  about  the 
movement  of  the  train.  When  we  learned  that 
it  had  tested  and  crossed  the  bridge  our  joy  was 
modified  only  by  the  fear  that  we  had  made  fools 
of  ourselves  in  leaving  Harrisburg,  and  that  the 
more  phlegmatic  Philadelphia  reporters  had 
already  got  to  Johnstown.  But  this  fear  was  soon 
dissipated.  The  trainman  knew  that  Harrisburg 
was  inundated  and  no  train  had  gone  west  for 
nearly  two  days.  A  new  fear  took  its  place.  It 
was  that  New  York  men,  starting  behind  us,  had 
got  into  Johnstown  through  Pittsburg  by  way  of 
the  New  York  Central  and  its  connections.  No 
telegrams  were  penned  with  more  conflicting 
emotions  surging  through  the  writer  than  those 
by  which  the  Times  s  correspondent  made  it  known 
that  he  had  got  out  of  the  Martinsburg  pocket 
and  was  about  to  make  a  wagon  journey  of  one 
hundred  and  ten  miles  across  the  mountains,  and 
asked  for  information  as  to  whether  any  Eastern 
man  had  got  to  the  scene  of  the  flood. 

"The   special   train  took  us  to  Chambersburg, 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

where  Superintendent  Riddle,  of  the  Cumberland 
Valley  Road,  had  information  that  four  Phila- 
delphia men  were  on  their  way  thither,  and  had 
engaged  a  team  to  take  them  on  the  first  stage  of 
the  overland  trip.  A  wild  rush  was  made  for 
Schiner's  livery,  and  in  ten  minutes  we  were  bowl- 
ing over  the  pike  toward  McConnellsburg,  having 
already  sent  thither  a  telegraphic  order  for  fresh 
teams.  The  train  from  Harrisburg  was  due  in 
five  minutes  when  we  started.  As  we  mounted 
each  hill  we  eagerly  scanned  the  road  behind 
for  pursuers.  They  never  came  in  sight. 

"In  McConnellsburg  the  entire  town  had  heard 
of  our  coming,  and  were  out  to  greet  us  with 
cheers.  They  knew  our  mission  and  that  a  party 
of  competitors  was  tracking  us.  Landlord  Prosser, 
of  the  Fulton  Hotel,  had  his  team  ready,  but  said 
there  had  been  an  enormous  wash-out  near  the 
Juniata  River,  beyond  which  he  could  not  take  us. 
We  would  have  to  walk  through  the  break  in  the 
pike  and  cross  the  river  on  a  bridge  tottering  on 
a  few  supports.  Telegrams  to  Everett  for  a  team 
to  meet  us  beyond  the  river  and  take  us  to  Bed- 
ford, and  to  the  latter  place  for  a  team  to  make 
the  journey  across  the  Allegehenies  to  Johnstown 
settled  all  our  plans. 

"As  well  as  we  could  make  it  out  by  telegraphic 
advices,  we  were  an  hour  ahead  of  the  Philadel- 
phians.  Ten  minutes  was  not,  therefore,  too 


408  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

long  for  supper.  Landlord  Prosser  took  the  reins 
himself  and  we  started  again,  with  a  hurrah  from 
the  populace.  As  it  was  Sunday,  they  would  sell 
us  nothing,  but  storekeeper  Young  and  telegraph 
operator  Sloan  supplied  us  with  tobacco  and 
other  little  comforts,  our  stock  of  which  had  been 
exhausted.  It  will  gratify  our  Prohibition  friends 
to  learn  that  whisky  was  not  among  them.  Mc- 
Connellsburg  is;  unfortunately,  a  dry  town  for  the 
time  being.  It  was  a  long  and  weary  pull  to  the 
top  of  Sidling  Hill.  To  ease  up  on  the  team,  we 
walked  the  greater  part  of  the  way.  A  short  de- 
scent and  a  straight  run  took  us  to  the  banks  of 
Licking  Creek. 

"  Harrisonville  was  just  beyond,  and  Harrison- 
ville  had  been  under  a  raging  flood,  which  had 
weakened  the  props  of  the  bridge  and  washed 
out  the  road  for  fifty  feet  beyond  it.  The  only 
thing  to  do  was  to  unhitch  and  lead  the  horses 
over  the  bridge  and  through  the  gully.  This  was 
difficult,  but  it  was  finally  accomplished.  The 
more  difficult  task  was  to  get  the  wagon  over.  A 
long  pull,  with  many  strong  lifts,  in  which  some  of 
the  natives  aided,  took  it  down  from  the  bridge 
and  through  the  break,  but  at  the  end  there 
were  more  barked  shins  and  bruised  toes  than 
any  other  four  men  ever  had  in  common. 

"  It  was  a  quick  ride  from  Everett  to  Bedford, 
for  our  driver  had  a  good  wagon  and  a  speedy 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  O OD. 

team.  Arriving  at  Bedford  a  little  after  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  we  found  dispatches  that 
cheered  us,  for  they  told  us  that  we  had  made  no 
mistake,  and  might  reach  the  scene  of  disaster 
first.  Only  a  reporter  who  has  been  on  a  mission 
similar  to  this  can  tell  the  joy  imparted  by  a  dis- 
patch like  this : 

"  '  NEW  YORK — Nobody  is  ahead  of  you.  Go  it.' 
"  At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  started  on 
our  long  trip  of  forty  miles  across  the  Alleghenies 
to  Johnstown.  Pleasantville  was  reached  at  half- 
past  six  A.  M.  Now  the  road  became  bad,  and 
everybody  but  the  driver  had  to  walk.  Footsore 
as  we  were,  we  had  to  clamber  over  rocks  and 
through  mud  in  a  driving  rain,  which  wet  us 
through.  For  ten  miles  we  went  thus  dismally. 
Ten  miles  from  Johnstown  we  got  in  the  wagon, 
and  every  one  promptly  went  to  sleep,  at  the  risk 
of  being  thrown  out  at  any  time  as  the  wagon 
jolted  along.  Tired  nature  could  stand  no  more, 
and  we  slumbered  peacefully  until  four  half- 
drunken  special  policemen  halted  us  at  the 
entrance  to  Johnstown.  Argument  with  them 
stirred  us  up,  and  we  got  into  town  and  saw  what 
a  ruin  it  was." 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 


NOR  was  the  life  of  the  correspondents  at  Johns- 
town altogether  a  happy  one.  The  life  of  a  news- 
paper man  is  filled  with  vicissitudes.  Sometimes 
he  feeds  on  the  fat  of  the  land,  and  at  others  he 
feeds  on  air ;  but  as  a  rule  he  lives  comfortably, 
and  has  as  much  satisfaction  in  life  as  other  men. 
It  may  safely  be  asserted,  however,  that  such  ex- 
periences as  the  special  correspondents  of  Eastern 
papers  have  met  with  in  Johnstown  are  not  easily 
paralleled.  When  a  war  correspondent  goes  on 
a  campaign  he  is  prepared  for  hardship  and  makes 
provision  against  it.  He  has  a  tent,  blankets, 
heavy  overcoat,  a  horse,  and  other  things  which 
are  necessaries  of  life  in  the  open  air.  But  the 
men  who  came  hurrying  to  Johnstown  to  fulfill 
the  invaluable  mission  of  letting-  the  world  know 

O 

just  what  was  the  matter  were  not  well  provided 
against  the  suffering  set  before  them. 

The  first  information  of  the  disaster  was  sent 

(410) 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  O OD.  .  1 1 

out  by  the  Associated  Press  on  the  evening  of  its 
occurrence.  The  destruction  of  wires  made  it 
impossible  to  give  as  full  an  account  as  would 
otherwise  have  been  sent,  but  the  dispatches  con- 
vinced the  managing  editors  of  the  wide-awake 
papers  that  a  calamity  destined  to  be  one  of  the 
most  fearful  in  all  human  history  had  fallen  upon 
the  peaceful  valley  of  the  Conemaugh.  All  the 
leading  Eastern  papers  started  men  for  Philadel- 
phia at  once.  From  Philadelphia  these  men  went 
to  Harrisburg.  There  were  many  able  repre- 
sentatives in  the  party,  and  they  are  ready  to 
wager  large  amounts  that  there  was  never  at  any 
place  a  crowd  of  newspaper  men  so  absolutely 
and  hopelessly  stalled  as  they  were  there.  Bridges 
were  down  and  the  roadway  at  many  places  was 
carried  away. 

Then  came  the  determined  and  exhausting 
struggle  to  reach  Johnstown.  The  stories  of  the 
different  trips  have  been  told.  From  Saturday 
morning  till  Monday  morning  the  correspondents 
fought  a  desperate  battle  against  the  raging 
floods,  risking  their  lives  again  and  again  to  reach 
the  city.  At  one  place  they  footed  it  across  a 
bridge  that  ten  minutes  later  went  swirling  clown 
the  mad  torrent  to  instant  destruction.  Again 
they  hired  carriages  and  drove  over  the  mount- 
ains, literally  wading  into  swollen  streams  and 
carrying  their  vehicles  across,  Finally  one  party 


4i  2  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

caught  a  Baltimore  and  Ohio  special   train  and 
got  into  Johnstown. 

It  was  Monday.  There  was  nothing  to  eat. 
The  men  were  exhausted,  hungry,  thirsty,  sleepy. 
Their  work  was  there,  however,  and  had  to  be 
done.  Where  was  the  telegraph  office  ?  Gone 
down  the  Conemaugh  Valley  to  hopeless  oblivion. 
But  the  duties  of  a  telegraph  company  are  as  im- 
perative as  those  of  a  newspaper.  General  Man- 
ager Clark,  of  Pittsburgh,  had  sent  out  a  force  of 
twelve  operators,  under  Operator  Munson  as 
manager  pro  tern.,  to  open  communications  at 
Johnstown.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  rushed 
them  through  to  the  westerly  end  of  the  fatal 
bridge.  Smoke  and  the  pall  of  death  were  upon 
it.  Ruin  and  devastation  were  all  around.  To 
get  wires  into  the  city  proper  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Nine  wires  were  good  between  the  west 
end  of  the  bridge  and  Pittsburgh.  The  telegraph 
force  found,  just  south  of  the  track,  on  the  side  of 
the  hill  overlooking  the  whole  scene  of  Johns- 
town's destruction,  a  miserable  hovel  which  had 
been  used  for  the  storage  of  oil  barrels.  The  in- 
terior was  as  dark  as  a  tomb,  and  smelled  like  the 
concentrated  essence  of  petroleum  itself.  The 
floor  was  a  slimy  mass  of  black  grease.  It  was 
no  time  for  delicacy.  In  went  the  operators  with 
their  relay  instruments  and  keys  ;  out  went  the 
barrels.  Rough  shelves  were  thrown  up  to  take 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


4*3 


copy  on,  and  some  old  chairs  were  subsequently 
secured.  Tallow  dips  threw  a  fitful  red  glare 
upon  the  scene.  The  operators  were  ready. 

Toward  dusk  ten  haggard  and  exhausted  New 
York  correspondents  came  staggering  up  the  hill- 
side. They  found  the  entire  neighborhood  infest- 
ed with  Pittsburgh  reporters,  who  had  already 
secured  all  the  good  places,  such  as  they  were, 
for  work,  and  were  busily  engaged  in  wiring 
to  their  offices  awful  tales  of  Hungarian  depre- 
dations upon  dead  bodies,  and  lynching  affairs 
which  never  occurred.  One  paper  had  eighteen 
men  there,  and  others  had  almost  an  equal 
number.  The  New  York  correspondents  were 
in  a  terrible  condition.  Some  of  them  had 
started  from  their  offices  without  a  change  of 
clothing,  and  had  managed  to  buy  a  flannel  shirt 
or  two  and  some  footwear,  including  the  abso- 
lutely necessary  rubber  boots,  on  the  way.  Others 
had  no  extra  coin,  and  were  wearing  the  low-cut 
shoes  which  they  had  on  at  starting.  One  or  two 
of  them  were  so  worn  out  that  they  turned  dizzy 
and  sick  at  the  stomach  when  they  attempted  to 
write.  But  the  work  had  to  be  done.  Just  south 
of  the  telegraph  office  stands  a  two-story  frame 
building  in  a  state  of  dilapidation.  It  is  flanked 
on  each  side  by  a  shed,  and  its  lower  story,  with 
an  earth  floor,  is  used  for  the  storage  of  fire  bricks. 
The  second-story  floor  is  full  of  great  gaps,  and 


4H 


T1U-:  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


the  entire  building  is  as  draughty  as  a  seive  and 
as  dusty  as  a  country  road  in  a  drought.  The 
Associated  Press  and  the  Herald  took  the  second 
floor,  the  Times,  Tribune,  Sun,  Morning  Journal, 
World,  Philadelphia  Press,  Baltimore  Sun,  and 
Pittsburgh  Post  took  possession  of  the  first  floor, 
using  the  sheds  as  day  outposts.  Some  old  bar- 
rels were  found  inside.  They  were  turned  up  on 
end,  some  boards  were  picked  up  outdoors  and 
laid  on  them,  and  seats  were  improvised  out  of 
the  fire-bricks.  Candles  were  borrowed  from  the 
telegraph  men,  who  were  hammering  away  at 
their  instruments  and  turning  pale  at  the  pros- 
pect, and  the  work  of  sending  dispatches  to  the 
papers  began. 

Not  a  man  had  assuaged  his  hunger.  Not  a 
man  knew  where  he  was  to  rest.  All  that  the 
operators  could  take,  and  a  great  deal  more,  was 
filed,  and  then  the  correspondents  began  to  think 
of  themselves.  Two  tents,  a  colored  cook,  and 
provisions  had  been  sent  up  from  Pittsburgh  for 
the  operators.  The  tents  were  pitched  on  the 
side  of  the  hill,  just  over  the  telegraph  "office," 
and  the  colored  cook  utilized  the  natural  gas  of  a 
brick-kiln  just  behind  them.  The  correspondents 
procured  little  or  nothing  to  eat  that  night.  Some 
of  them  plodded  wearily  across  the  Pennsylvania 
bridge  and  into  the  city,  out  to  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  tracks,  and  into  the  car  in  which  they 


THE  JOtlNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


417 


had  arrived.  There  they  slept,  in  all  their  cloth- 
ing, in  miserably-cramped  positions  on  the  seats. 
In  the  morning  they  had  nothing  to  wash  in  but 
the  polluted  waters  of  the  Conemaugh.  Others, 
who  had  no  claim  on  the  car,  moved  to  pity  a 
night  watchman,  who  took  them  to  a  large  barn 
in  Cambria  City.  There  they  slept  in  a  hay-loft, 
to  the  tuneful  piping  of  hundreds  of  mice,  the 
snorting  of  horses  and  cattle,  the  nocturnal  danc- 
ing of  dissipated  rats,  and  the  solemn  rattle  of 
cow  chains. 

In  the  morning  all  hands  were  out  bright  and 
early,  sparring  for  food.  The  situation  was  des- 
perate. There  was  no  such  thing  in  the  place  as 
a  restaurant  or  a  hotel  ;  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  a  store.  The  few  remaining  houses  were  over- 
crowded with  survivors  who  had  lost  all.  They 
could  get  food  by  applying  to  the  Relief  Com- 
mittee. The  correspondents  had  no  such  privi- 
lege. They  had  plenty  of  money,  but  there  was 
nothing  for  sale.  They  could  not  beg  nor  bor- 
row ;  they  wouldn't  steal.  Finally,  they  pre- 
vailed upon  a  pretty  Pennsylvania  mountain 
woman,  with  fair  skin,  gray  eyes,  and  a  delicious 
way  of  saying  "You  un's,"  to  give  them  some- 
thing to  eat.  She  fried  them  some  tough  pork, 
gave  them  some  bread,  and  made  them  some 
coffee  without  milk  and  sugar.  The  first  man 
that  stayed  his  hunger  was  so  glad  that  he  gave 
24 


41  g  THE  JOnKSTOWK  FLOOD. 

her  a  dollar,  and  that  became  her  upset  price.  It 
cost  a  dollar  to  go  in  and  look  around  after  that. 

Then  Editor  Walters,  of  Pittsburgh,  a  great 
big  man  with  a  great  big  heart,  ordered  up  $150 
worth  of  food  from  Pittsburgh.  He  got  a  Ger- 
man named  George  Esser,  in  Cambria  City,  to 
cook  at  his  house,  which  had  not  been  carried 
away,  and  the  boys  were  mysteriously  informed  that 
they  could  get  meals  at  the  German's.  He  was 
supposed  to  be  one  of  the  dread  Hungarians,  and 
the  boys  christened  his  place  the  Cafe  Hungaria. 
They  paid  fifty  cents  apiece  to  him  for  cooking 
the  meals,  but  it  was  three  days  before  the  secret 
leaked  out  that  Mr.  Walters  supplied  the  food. 
If  ever  Mr.  Walters  gets  into  a  tight  place  he  has 
only  to  telegraph  to  New  York,  and  twenty  grate- 
ful men  will  do  anything  in  their  power  to  repay 
his  kindness. 

Then  the  routine  of  Johnstown  life  for  the  cor- 
respondents became  settled.  At  night  they  slept 
in  the  old  car  or  the  hay-mow  or  elsewhere.  They 
breakfasted  at  the  Cafe  Hungaria.  Then  they 
went  forth  to  their  work.  They  had  to  walk 
everywhere.  Over  the  mountains,  through  briers 
and  among  rocks,  down  in  the  valley  in  mud  up 
to  their  knees,  they  tramped  over  the  whole  dis- 
trict lying  between  South  Fork  and  New  Flor- 
ence, a  distance  of  twenty-three  miles,  to  gather 
the  details  of  the  frightful  calamity.  Luncheon 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


419 


was  a  rare  and  radiant  luxury.  Dinner  was  eaten 
at  the  cafe.  Copy  was  written  everywhere  and 
anywhere. 

Constant  struggles  were  going  on  between  cor- 
respondents and  policemen  or  deputy  sheriffs. 
The  countersign  was  given  out  incorrectly  to  the 
newspaper  men  one  night,  and  many  of  them  had 
much  trouble.  At  night  the  boys  traversed 
the  place  at  the  risk  of  life  and  limb.  Two 
Times  men  spent  an  hour  and  a  half  going  two 
miles  to  the  car  for  rest  one  night.  The  city— 
or  what  had  been  the  city — was  wrapped  in  Cim- 
merian darkness,  only  intensified  by  the  feeble 
glimmer  of  the  fires  of  the  night  guards.  The 
two  correspondents  almost  fell  through  a  pontoon 
bridge  into  the  Conemaugh.  Again  they  almost 
walked  into  the  pit  full  of  water  where  the  gas 
tank  had  been.  At  length  they  met  two  guards 
going  to  an  outlying  post  near  the  car  with  a 
lantern.  These  men  had  lived  in  Johnstown  all 
their  lives.  Three  times  they  were  lost  on  their 
way  over.  Another  correspondent  fell  down  three 
or  four  slippery  steps  one  night  and  sprained  his 
ankle,  but  he  gritted  his  teeth  and  stuck  to  his 
work.  One  of  the  Times  men  tried  to  sleep  in 
a  hay-mow  one  night,  but  at  one  o'clock  he  was 
driven  out  by  the  rats.  He  wandered  about  till 
he  found  a  night  watchman,  who  escorted  him  to 
a  brick-kiln.  Attired  in  all  his  clothing,  his  mack- 


420 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


intosh,  rubber  boots,  and  hat,  and  with  his  hand- 
kerchief for  a  pillow,  he  stretched  himself  upon 
a  plank  on  top  of  the  bricks  inside  the  kiln  and 
slept  one  solitary  hour.  It  was  the  third  hour's 
sleep  he  had  enjoyed  in  seventy-two  hours.  The 
next  morning  he  looked  like  a  paralytic  tramp 
who  had  been  hauled  out  of  an  ash-heap. 

Another  correspondent  fell  through  an  opening 
in  the  Pennsylvania  bridge  and  landed  in  a  cul- 
vert several  feet  below.  His  left  eye  was  almost 
knocked  out,  and  he  had  to  go  to  one  of  the  hos- 
pitals for  treatment.  But  he  kept  at  his  work. 
The  more  active  newspaper  men  were  a  sight  by 
Wednesday.  They  knew  it.  They  had  their  pic- 
tures taken.  They  call  the  group  "The  Johns- 
town Sufferers."  Their  costumes  are  picturesque. 
One  of  them — a  dramatically  inclined  youth  some- 
times called  Romeo — wears  a  pair  of  low  shoes 
which  are  incrusted  with  yellow  mud,  a  pair  of 
gray  stained  trousers,  a  yellow  corduroy  coat,  a 
flaruiel  shirt,  a  soft  hat  of  a  dirty  greenish-brown 
tint,  and  a  rubber  overcoat  with  a  cape.  And  still 
he  is  not  happy. 


CHAPTER   XXXVII!. 


THE  storm  that  filled  Conemaugh  Lake  and 
burst  its  bounds  also  wrought  sad  havoc  else- 
where. Williamsport,  Pa.,  underwent  the  ex- 
perience of  being  flooded  with  thirty-four  feet  of 
water,  of  having  the  Susquehanna  boom  taken 
out  with  two  hundred  million  feet  of  logs,  over 
forty  million  feet  of  sawed  lumber  taken,  mills 
carried  away  and  others  wrecked,  business  and 
industrial  establishments  wrecked,  and  a  large 
number  of  lives  lost.  The  flood  was .  nearly 
seven  feet  higher  than  the  great  high  water  of 
1865. 

Early  on  Friday  news  came  of  the  flood  at 
Clearfield,  but  it  was  not  before  two  o'clock  Sat- 
urday morning  that  the  swelling  water  began  to 
become  prominent,  the  river  then  showing  a  rise 
averaging  two  feet  to  the  hour.  Steadily  and 
rapidly  thereafter  the  rise  continued.  The  rain 
up  the  country  had  been  terrific,  and  from  Thurs- 

(421) 


422  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

day  afternoon,  throughout  the  night,  and  during 
Friday  and  Friday  night,  the  rain  fell  here  with 
but  little  interruption.  After  midnight  Friday  it 
came  down  in  absolute  torrents  until  nearly  day- 
light Saturday  morning.  As  a  result  of  this  rise, 
Grafins  Run,  a  small  stream  running  through  the 
city  from  northwest  to  southeast,  was  raised  until 
it  flooded  the  whole  territory  on  either  side  of  it. 

Soon  after  daylight,  the  rain  having  ceased,  the 
stream  began  to  subside,  and  as  the  river  had  not 
then  reached  an  alarming  height,  very  few  were 
concerned  over  the  outlook.  The  water  kept 
getting  higher  and  higher,  and  spreading  out  over 
the  lower  streets.  At  about  nine  o'clock  in  the 
forenoon  the  logs  began  to  go  down,  filling  the 
stream  from  bank  to  bank.  The  water  had  by 
this  time  reached  almost  the  stage  of  1865.  It 
was  coming  up  Third  Street  to  the  Court-house, 
and  was  up  Fourth  Street  to  Market.  Not  long 
after  it  reached  Third  Street  on  William,  and  ad- 
vanced up  Fourth  to  Pine.  Its  onward  prog- 
ress did  not  stop,  however,  as  it  rose  higher 
on  Third  Street,  and  soon  began  to  reach  Fourth 
Street  both  at  Elmira  and  Locust  Streets.  No 
one  along  Fourth  between  William  and  Hepburn 
had  any  conception  that  it  would  trouble  them, 
but  the  sequel  proved  they  were  mistaken. 

Soon  after  noon  the  water  began  crossing  the 
railroad  at  Walnut  and  Campbell  Streets,  and 


THE      OllKSTUwtf  FLOOD. 


soon  all  the  country  north  of  the  railroad  was 
submerged,  that  part  along  the  run  being  for  the 
second  time  during  the  day  flooded.  The  rise 
kept  on  until  nine  o'clock  at  night,  and  after  that 
hour  it  began  to  go  slowly  the  other  way.  By 
daylight  Sunday  morning  it  had  fallen  two  feet, 
and  that  receding  continued  during  the  day. 
When  the  water  was  at  its  highest  the  memorable 
sight  was  to  be  seen  of  a  level  surface  of  water 
extending  from  the  northern  line  of  the  city  from 
Rural  Avenue  on  Locust  Street,  entirely  across 
the  city  to  the  mountain  on  the  south  side.  This 
meant  that  the  water  was  six  feet  deep  on  the 
floors  of  the  buildings  in  Market  Square,  over 
four  feet  deep  in  the  station  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  and  at  the  Park  Hotel.  Fully  three- 
quarters  of  the  city  was  submerged. 

The  loss  was  necessarily  enormous.  It  was 
heaviest  on  the  lumbermen.  All  the  logs  were 
lost,  and  a  large  share  of  the  cut  lumber. 

The  loss  of  life  was  heavy. 

A  general  meeting  of  lumbermen  was  held,  to 
take  action  on  the  question  of  looking  after  the 
lost  stock.  A  comparison  as  to  losses  was  made, 
but  many  of  those  present  were  unable  to  give  an 
estimate  of  the  amount  they  had  lost.  It  was 
found  that  the  aggregate  of  logs  lost  from  the 
boom  was  about  two  hundred  million  feet,  and 
the  aggregate  of  manufactured  lumber  fully  forty 


'rilK  JOHHSTOWN  FL 

million  feet.  The  only  saw-mill  taken  was  the 
Beaver  mill  structure,  which  contained  two  mills, 
that  of  S.  Mack  Taylor  and  the  Williamsport 
Lumber  Company.  It  went  down  stream  just  as 
it  stood,  and  lodged  a  few  miles  below  the  city. 

A  member  of  the  Philadelphia  Times  staff  tel- 
egraphed from  Williamsport : — 

"Trusting  to  the  strong  arms  of  brave  John 
Nichol,  I  safely  crossed  the  Susquehanna  at  Mont- 
gomery in  a  small  boat,  and  met  Superintendent 
Westfall  on  the  other  side  on  an  engine.  We 
went  to  where  the  Northern  Central  crosses  the 
river  again  to  Williamsport,  where  it  is  wider  and 
swifter.  The  havoc  everywhere  is  dreadful. 
Most  of  the  farmers  for  miles  and  miles  have 
lost  their  stock  and  crops,  and  some  their  horses 
and  barns.  In  one  place  I  saw  thirty  dead  cattle. 
They  had  caught  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  but  were 
drowned  and  carried  into  a  creek  that  had  been 
a  part  of  a  river.  I  could  see  where  the  river 
had  been  over  the  tops  of  the  barns  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  from  the  usual  bank.  A  man  named  Gib- 
son, some  miles  below  Williamsport,  lost  every 
animal  but  a  gray  horse,  which  got  into  the  loft 
and  stayed  there,  with  the  water  up  to  his  body. 

"A  woman  named  Clark  is  alive,  with  six  cows 
that  she  got  upstairs.  Along  the  edges  of  the 
washed-out  tracks  families  with  stoves  and  a  few 
things  saved  are  under  board  shanties.  We 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.        .  435 

passed  the  saw-mill  that,  by  forming  a  dam,  is 
responsible  for  the  loss  of  the  Williamsport 
bridges.  The  river  looked  very  wild,  but  Super- 
intendent Westfall  and  I  crossed  it  in  two  boats. 
It  is  nearly  half  a  mile  across.  Both  boats  were 
carried  some  distance  and  nearly  upset.  It  was 
odd,  after  wading  through  mud  into  the  town,  to 
find  all  Williamsport  knowing  little  or  nothing 
about  Johnstown  or  what  had  been  happening 
elsewhere.  Mr.  Westfall  was  beset  by  thousands 
asking  about  friends  on  the  other  side,  and  in- 
quiring when  food  can  be  got  through. 

"The  loss  is  awful.  There  have  not  been 
many  buildings  in  the  town  carried  off,  but  there 
are  few  that  have  not  been  damaged.  There  is 
mourning  everywhere  for  the  dead.  Men  look 
serious  and  worn,  and  every  one  is  going  about 
splashed  with  mud.  The  mayor,  in  his  address, 
says  :  '  Send  us  help  at  once — in  the  name  of 
God,  at  once.  There  are  hundreds  utterly  des- 
titute. They  have  lost  all  they  had,  and  have 
no  hope  of  employment  for  the  future.  Philadel- 
phia should,  if  possible,  send  provisions.  Such 
a  thing  as  a  chicken  is  unknown  here.  They 
were  all  carried  off.  It  is  hard  to  get  anything  to 
eat  for  love  or  money.  Flour  is  needed  worse 
than  anything  else.' 

"  I  gave  away  a  cooked  chicken  and  sandwiches 
that  I  had  with  me  to  two  men  who  had  had  noth- 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

ing  to  eat  since  yesterday  morning.  The  flood 
having  subsided,  all  the  grim  destitution  is  now 
uncovered.  Last  night  a  great  many  grocery 
and  other  stores  were  gutted,  not  by  the  water, 
but  by  hungry,  desperate  people.  They  only 
took  things  to  eat. 

"A  pathetic  feature  of  the  loss  of  life  is  the 
great  number  of  children  drowned.  In  one  case 
two  brothers  named  Youngman,  up  the  river, 
who  have  a  woolen  mill,  lost  their  wives  and 
children  and  their  property,  too,  by  the  bursting 
of  the  dam.  Everything  was  carried  away  in  the 
night.  They  saved  themselves  by  being  strong. 
One  caught  in  a  tree  on  the  side  of  the  mount- 
ain across  the  river  and  remained  there  from  Sat- 
urday night  until  late  Sunday,  with  the  river  below 
him." 

Among  the  many  remarkable  experiences  was 
that  of  Garrett  L.  Grouse,  proprietor  of  a  large 
kindling-wood  mill,  who  is  also  well  known  to 
many  Philadelphia  and  New  York  business  men. 
Mr.  Grouse  lives  on  the  north  side  of  West  Fourth 
Street,  between  Walnut  and  Campbell.  On  Sat- 
urday he  was  down  town,  looking  after  his  mill 
and  wood,  little  thinking  that  there  was  any  flood 
in  the  western  part  of  the  city.  At  eleven  o'clock 
he  started  to  go  home,  and  sauntered  leisurely  up 
Fourth  Street.  He  soon  learned  the  condition  of 
things  and  started  for  Lycoming  Street,  and  was 


Till-:  JOHNS 7 OWN  FLOOD. 


427 


soon  in  front  of  the  Rising  Sun  Hotel,  on  Walnut 
Street,  wading  in  the  water,  which  came  nearly  to 
his  neck.  Boats  passing  and  repassing  refused 
to  take  him  in,  notwithstanding  that  he  was  so 
close  to  his  home.  The  water  continued  to  rise 
and  he  detached  a  piece  of  board-walk,  holding 
on  to  a  convenient  tree.  In  this  position  he 
stayed  two  hours  in  the  vain  hope  that  a  boat 
would  take  him  on. 

At  this  juncture  a  man  with  a  small  boat  hove 
in  sight  and  came  so  close  that  Mr.  Grouse  could 
touch  it.  Laying  hold  of  the  boat  he  asked  the 
skipper  how  much  he  would  take  to  row  him  down 
to  Fourth  Street,  where  the  larger  boats  were 
running. 

"  I  can't  take  you,"  was  the  reply  ;  "this  boat 
only  holds  one." 

"  I  know  it  only  holds  one,  but  it  will  hold  two 
this  time,"  replied  the  would-be  passenger.  "  This 
water  is  getting  unpleasantly  close  to  my  lower 
lip.  It's  a  matter  of  life  and  death  with  me,  and 
if  you  don't  want  to  carry  two  your  boat  will  carry 
one  ;  but  I'll  be  that  one." 

The  fellow  in  the  boat  realized  that  the  talk 
meant  business,  and  the  two  started  down  town. 
At  Pine  Street  Mr.  Grouse  waited  for  a  big  boat 
another  hour,  and  when  he  finally  found  one  he 
was  shivering  with  cold.  The  men  in  the  boat  en- 
gaged to  run  him  for  five  dollars,  and  they  started. 


42<>  THE  jOHbStOWN  U.OOD. 

It  was  five  o'clock  when  they  reached  their  des- 
tination, when  they  rowed  to  their  passenger's 
stable  and  found  his  horses  up  to  their  necksln 
the  flood. 

"  What  will  you  charge  to  take  these  two  horses 
to  Old  Oaks  Park  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Ten  dollars  apiece,"  was  the  reply. 

"I'll  pay  it." 

They  then  rowed  to  the  harness  room,  got  the 
bridles,  rowed  back  to  the  horses  and  bridled 
them.  They  first  took  out  the  brown  horse  and 
landed  her  at  the  park,  Mr  Grouse  holding  her 
behind  the  boat.  They  returned  for  the  gray  and 
started  out  with  her,  but  had  scarcely  left  the 
stable  when  her  head  fell  back  to  one  side.  Fright 
had  already  exhausted  her.  They  took  her  back 
to  the  house  porch,  when  Mr.  Grouse  led  her  up- 
stairs and  put  her  in  a  bed-room,  where  she  stayed 
high  and  dry  all  night.  On  Sunday  morning  the 
folks  who  were  cleaning  up  were  surprised  to  see 
a  gray  h0rse  and  a  man  backing  down  a  plank 
out  of  the  front  door  of  a  Fourth  Street  residence. 

It  was  Garrett  Grouse  and  his  gray  horse,  and 
when  the  neighbors  saw  it  they  turned  from  the 
scene  of  desolation  about  them  and  warmly  ap- 
plauded both  beast  and  master.  This  is  how  a 
Williamsport  man  got  home  during  the  flood  and 
saved  his  horses.  It  took  him  five  hours  and  cost 
him  twenty-five  dollars. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


429 


Mr.  James  R.  Skinner,  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 
arrived  home  after  a  series  of  remarkable  adven- 
tures in  the  floods  at  Williamsport. 

"  I  went  to  Williamsport  last  Thursday,"  said 
Mr.  Skinner,  "and  on  Friday  the  rain  fell  as  I 
had  never  seen  it  fall  before.  The  skies  seemed 
simply  to  open  and  unload  the  water.  The  Sus- 
quehanna  was  booming  and  kept  on  rising  rap- 
idly, but  the  people  of  Williamsport  did  not  seem 
to  be  particularly  alarmed.  On  Saturday  the 
water  had  risen  to  such  a  height  that  the  people 
quit  laughing  and  gathered  along  the  sides  of  the 
torrent  with  a  sort  of  awe-stricken  curiosity. 

"A  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  Frank  Bellows,  and 
myself  went  out  to  see  the  grand  spectacle,  and 
found  a  place  of  observation  on  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  bridge.  Great  rafts  of  logs  were  swept 
down  the  stream,  and  now  and  then  a  house 
would  be  brought  with  a  crash  against  the  bridge. 
Finally,  one  span  gave  way  and  then  we  beat  a 
hasty  retreat.  By  wading  we  reached  the  place 
of  a  man  who  owned  a  horse  and  buggy.  These 
we  hired  and  started  to  drive  to  the  hotel,  which 
is  on  the  highest  ground  in  the  city.  The  water 
was  all  the  time  rising,  and  the  flood  kept  coming 
in  waves.  These  waves  came  with  such  fre- 
quency and  volume  that  we  were  forced  to  aban- 
don the  horse  and  buggy  and  try  wading.  With 
the  water  up  to  our  armpits  we  got  to  an  out- 


430 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


house,  and  climbing  to  the  top  of  it  made  our 
way  along  to  a  building.  This  I  entered  through 
a  window,  and  found  the  family  in  the  upper 
stories.  Floating  outside  were  two  canoes,  one 
of  which  I  hired  for  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents.  I 
at  once  embarked  in  this  and  tried  to  paddle  for 
my  hotel.  I  hadn't  gone  a  hundred  feet  when  I 
capsized.  Going  back,  I  divested  myself  of  my 
coat,  waistcoat,  shoes,  and  stockings.  I  tried 
again  to  make  the  journey,  and  succeeded  very 
well  for  quite  a  distance,  when  the  canoe  sud- 
denly struck  something  and  over  it  went.  I  man- 
aged to  hold  the  paddle  and  the  canoe,  but  every- 
thing else  was  washed  away  and  lost.  After  a 
struggle  in  the  water,  which  was  running  like  a 
mill-race,  I  got  afloat  again  and  managed  to  lodge 
myself  against  a  train  of  nearly  submerged  freight 
cars.  Then,  by  drawing  myself  against  the 
stream,  I  got  opposite  the  hotel  and  paddled 
over.  My  friend  Bellows  was  not  so  fortunate. 
The  other  canoe  had  a  hole  in  it,  and  he  had  to 
spend  the  night  on  the  roof  of  a  house. 

"The  trainmen  of  the  Pennsylvania  road 
thought  to  sleep  in  the  cars,  but  were  driven  out, 
and  forced  to  take  refuge  in  the  trees,  from  which 
they  were  subsequently  rescued.  The  Beaver 
Dam  mill  was  moved  from  its  position  as  though 
it  was  being  towed  by  some  enormous  steam 
tug.  The  river  swept  away  everything  that 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

offered  it  any  resistance.  Saturday  night  was  the 
most  awful  I  ever  experienced.  The  horrors  of 
the  flood  were  intensified  by  an  inky  darkness, 
through  which  the  cries  of  women  and  children 
were  ceaselessly  heard.  Boatmen  labored  all 
night  to  give  relief,  and  hundreds  were  brought 
to  the  hotel  for  safety. 

"  On  Sunday  the  waters  began  to  subside,  and 
then  the  effects  were  more  noticeable.  All  the 
provision  stores  were  washed  out  completely,  and 
one  of  the  banks  had  its  books,  notes,  and  green- 
backs destroyed.  I  saw  rich  men  begging  for 
bread  for  their  children.  They  had  money,  but 
there  was  nothing  to  be  bought.  This  lack  of 
supplies  is  the  greatest  trouble  that  Williamsport 
has  to  contend  with,  and  I  really  do  not  see  how 
the  people  are  to  subsist. 

"Sunday  afternoon  Mr.  C.  H.  Blaisdell,  Mr. 
Cochrane,  a  lumberman  and  woodman,  a  driver, 
and  myself  started  in  a  wagon  for  Canton,  with 
letters  and  appeals  for  assistance.  The  roads 
were  all  washed  away,  and  we  had  to  go  over  the 
mountains.  We  had  to  cut  our  way  through  the 
forests  at  times,  hold  the  wagon  up  against  the 
sides  of  precipices,  ford  streams,  and  undergo  a 
thousand  hardships.  After  two  days  of  travel 
that  even  now  seems  impossible,  we  got  into 
Canton  more  dead  than  alive.  The  soles  were 
completely  gone  from  my  boots,  and  I  had  on 


THE  JOFTNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

only  my  night-shirt,  coat,  and  trousers,  which  I 
had  saved  from  the  flood.  A  relief  corps  was  at 
once  organized,  and  sent  with  provisions  for  the 
sufferers.  But  it  had  to  take  a  roundabout  way, 
and  I  do  not  know  what  will  become  of  those  poor 
people  in  the  meantime." 

Mr.  Richard  P.  Rothwell,  the  editor  of  the  New 
York  Engineering  and  Mining  Journal,  and  Mr. 
Ernest  Alexander  Thomson,  the  two  men  who 
rowed  down  the  Susquehanna  River  from  Will- 
iamsport,  Pa.,  to  Sunbury,  and  brought  the  first 
news  of  the  disaster  by  flood  at  Williamsport, 
came  through  to  New  York  by  the  Reading  road. 
The  boat  they  made  the  trip  in  was  a  common 
flat-bottom  rowboat,  about  thirteen  feet  long,  fitted 
for  one  pair  of  oars.  There  were  three  men  in 
the  crew,  and  her  sides  were  only  about  three 
inches  above  the  water  when  they  were  aboard. 
The  third  was  Mr.  Aaron  Niel,  of  Phoenixville, 
Pa.  He  is  a  trotting-horse  owner. 

Mr.  Thomson  is  a  tall,  athletic  young  man,  a 
graduate  of  Harvard  in  '87.  He  would  not  ac- 
knowledge that  the  trip  was  very  dangerous,  but 
an  idea  of  it  can  be  had  from  the  fact  that  they 
made  the  run  of  forty-five  miles  in  four  and  one- 
half  hours. 

"  My  brother,  John  W.  Thomson,  myself,  and 
Mr.  Rothwell;"  he  said,  "have  been  prospecting 
for  coal  back  of  Ralston.  It  began  to  rain  on 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD.  *-, ^ 

Friday  just  after  we  got  into  Myer's  Hotel,  where 
we  were  staying.  The  rain  fell  in  torrents  for 
thirty-two  hours.  The  water  was  four  or  five  feet 
deep  in  the  hotel  when  the  railroad  bridge  gave 
way,  and  domestic  animals  and  outhouses  were 
floating  down  the  river  by  scores.  The  bridge 
swung  around  as  if  it  were  going  to  strike  the 
hotel.  Cries  of  distress  from  the  back  porch 
were  heard,  and  when  we  ran  out  we  found  a 
parrot  which  belonged  to  me  crying  with  all  his 
might,  '  Hellup  !  hellup  !  hellup  ! '  My  brother 
left  for  Williamsport  by  train  on  Friday  night. 
We  followed  on  foot.  There  were  nineteen 
bridges  in  the  twenty-five  miles  to  Williamsport, 
and  all  but  three  were  gone. 

"  In  Williamsport  every  one  seemed  to  be 
drinking.  Men  waited  in  rows  five  or  six  deep 
in  front  of  the  bars  of  the  two  public  houses,  the 
Lush  House  and  the  Concordia.  We  paid  two 
dollars  each  for  the  privilege  of  sleeping  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  bar-room.  Mr.  Rothwell  suggested  the 
boat  trip  when  we  found  all  the  wagons  in  town 
were  under  water.  The  whole  town  except  Sau- 
erkraut Hill  was  flooded,  and  it  was  as  hard  to 
buy  a  boat  as  it  was  to  get  a  cab  during  the  bliz- 
zard. It  was  here  we  met  Niel.  ' I  was  a  rafts- 
man,' he  said,  'on  the  Allegheny  years  ago,  and 
I  may  be  of  use  to  you,'  and  he  was.  He  sat  in 
the  bow,  and  piloted,  I  rowed,  and  Mr.  Rothwell 
25 


434 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


steered  with  a  piece  of  board.  Our  danger  was 
from  eddies,  and  it  was  greatest  when  we  passed 
the  ruins  of  bridges.  We  started  at  10.15,  and 
made  the  run  to  Montgomery,  eighteen  miles,  in 
one  and  a  quarter  hours.  In  places  we  were  go- 
ing at  the  rate  of  twenty  miles  an  hour.  There 
wasn't  a  whole  bridge  left  on  the  forty-five  miles 
of  river.  As  we  passed  Milton  we  were  in  sight  of 
the  race-track,  where  Niel  won  a  trot  the  week 
before.  The  grand  stand  was  just  toppling  into 
the  water. 

"I  think  I  ought  to  row  in  a  'Varsity  crew  now," 
Mr.  Thomson  concluded.  "  I  don't  believe  any 
crew  ever  beat  our  time  " 


CHAPTER    XXXIX. 


THERE  was  terrible  destruction  to  life  and 
property  throughout  the  entire  Juniata  Valley 
by  the  unprecedented  flood.  Between  Tyrone 
and  Lewistown  the  greatest  devastation  was  seen 
and  especially  below  Huntingdon  at  the  confluence 
of  the  Raystown  branch  and  the  Juniata  River. 
During  the  preceding  days  of  the  week  the  rain- 
filled  clouds  swept  around  the  southeast,  and  on 
Friday  evening  met  an  opposing  strata  of  storm 
clouds,  which  resulted  in  an  indescribable  down- 
pour of  rain  of  twelve  hours'  duration. 

The  surging,  angry  waters  swept  down  the 
river,  every  rivulet  and  tributary  adding  its 
raging  flood  to  the  stream,  until  there  was  a  sea 
of  water  between  the  parallel  hills  of  the  valley. 
Night  only  added  to  the  terror  and  confusion.  In 
Huntingdon  City,  and  especially  in  the  southern 
and  eastern  suburbs,  the  inhabitants  were  forced 
to  flee  for  their  lives  at  midnight  on  Thursday, 

(435) 


TI1E  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

* 

and  by  daybreak  the  chimneys  of  their  houses 
were  visible  above  the  rushing  waters.  Opposite 
the  city  the  people  of  Smithfield  found  salrty 
within  the  walls  of  the  State  Reformatory,  and 
for  two  days  they  were  detained  under  great 
privations. 

Some  conception  of  the  volume  of  water  in 
the  river  may  be  had  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
thirty-five  feet  above  low-water  mark,  being  eight 
feet  higher  than  the  great  flood  of  1847.  Many 
of  the  inhabitants  in  the  low  sections  of  Hunting- 
don, who  hesitated  about  leaving  their  homes, 
were  rescued,  before  the  waters  submerged  their 
houses,  with  great  difficulty. 

Huntingdon,  around  which  the  most  destruc- 
tion is  to  be  seen  of  any  of  the  towns  in  the 
Juniata  Valley,  was  practically  cut  off  from  all 
communication  with  the  outside  world,  as  all  the 
river  bridges  crossing  the  stream  at  that  point 
were  washed  away.  There  was  but  one  bridge 
standing  in  the  county,  and  that  was"  the  Hunting- 
don and  Broad  Top  Railroad  bridge,  which  stood 
isolated  in  the  river,  the  trestle  on  the  other  end 
being  destroyed.  Not  a  county  bridge  was  left, 
and  this  loss  alone  approximated  $200,000. 

The  gas  works  were  wrecked  on  Thursday 
night  and  the  town  was  left  in  darkness. 

Just  below  where  the  Juniata  and  Raystown 
branch  meet,  lived  John  Dean  and  wife,  aged 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  J-LOCD. 


437 


seventy-seven  each,  and  both  blind.  With  them 
resided  John  Swaner  and  wife.  Near  by  lived 
John  Rupert,  wife  and  three  small  children. 
When  the  seething  current  struck  these  houses 
they  were  carried  a  half  mile  down  the  course  of 
the  stream  and  lodged  on  the  ends  amid  stream. 

The  Ruperts  were  soon  driven  to  the  attic,  and 
finally,  when  it  became  evident  that  they  must 
perish,  the  frantic  mother  caught  up  two  bureau 
drawers,  and  placed  her  little  children  in  them 
upon  the  angry  waves,  hoping  that  they  might  be 
saved  ;  but  all  in  vain. 

The  loss  of  life  by  the  flood  in  Clinton  County, 
in  which  Lock  Haven  is  situated,  was  heavy. 
Twenty  of  those  lost  were  in  the  Nittany  Valley, 
and  seven  in  Wayne  Township.  Lock  Haven 
was  very  fortunate,  as  the  inhabitants  there  dwell- 
ing in  the  midst  of  logs  on  the  rivers  are  accus- 
tomed to  overflows.  There  were  many  sagacious 
inhabitants  who,  remembering  the  flood  of  1865, 
on  Saturday  began  to  prepare  by  removing  their 
furniture  and  other  possessions  to  higher  ground 
for  safety.  It  was  this  full  and  realizing  sense  of 
the  danger  that  gave  Lock  Haven  such  immun- 
ity from  loss  of  life. 

The  only  case  of  drowning  in  Lock  Haven  was 
of  James  Guilforcl,  a  young  man  who,  though 
warned  not  to  do  so,  attempted  to  wade  across 
the  main  street,  where  six  feet  of  the  overflowed 


TnE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

river  was  running,  and  was  carried  off  by  the 
swift  current.  The  other  dead  include  William 
Confur  and  his  wife  and  three  children,  all  car- 
ried off  and  drowned  in  their  little  home  as  it 
floated  away,  and  the  two  children  of  Jacob 
Kashne. 

Robert  Armstrong  and  his  sister  perished  at 
Clintondale  under  peculiarly  dreadful  circum- 
stances. At  Mackeyville,  John  Harley,  Andrew 
R.  Stine,  wife  and  two  daughters,  were  drowned, 
while  the  two  boys  were  saved.  At  Salona,  Alex- 
ander M.  Uting  and  wife,  Mrs.  Henry  Snyder  were 
drowned.  At  Cedar  Springs,  Mrs.  Luther  S. 
Eyler  and  three  children  were  drowned.  The 
husband  was  found  alive  in  a  tree,  while  his  wife 
was  dead  in  a  drift-pile  a  few  rods  away.  At 
Rote,  Mrs.  Charles  Cole  and  her  two  children 
were  drowned,  while  he  was  saved.  Mrs.  Charles 
Earner  and  her  children  were  also  drowned,  while 
the  husband  and  father  was  saved.  This  is  a  queer 
coincidence  found  all  through  this  section,  that 

o 

the  men  are  survivors,  while  the  wives  and  chil- 
dren are  victims. 

The  scenes  that  have  been  witnessed  in  Tyrone 
City  during  the  time  from  Friday  evening,  May 
3ist,  to  Monday  evening,  June  3d,  are  almost  in- 
describable. On  Friday  afternoon,  May  3ist, 
telephone  messages  from  Clearfield  gave  warn- 
ing of  a  terrible  flood  at  that  place,  and  prepara- 


THE  JO11XS7OWN  FLOOD. 

tions  were  commenced  by  everybody  for  high 
water,  although  no  one  anticipated  that  it  would 
equal  in  height  that  of  1885,  which  had  always  in 
the  past  served  as  high-water  mark  in  Lock 
Haven. 

All  of  that  Friday  rain  descended  heavily,  and 
when  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  the  water 
commenced  rising,  the  rain  was  falling  in  torrents. 
The  river  rose  rapidly,  and  before  midnight  was 
over  the  top  of  the  bank.  Its  rapid  rising  was 
the  signal  for  hasty  preparations  for  higher  water 
than  ever  before  witnessed  in  the  city.  As  the 
water  continued  rising,  both  the  river  and  Bald 
Eagle  Creek,  the  vast  scope  of  land  from  mount- 
ain to  mountain  was  soon  a  sea  of  foaming  water. 

The  boom  gave  away  about  two  o'clock  Satur- 
day morning,  and  millions  of  feet  of  logs  were 
taken  away.  Along  Water  Street,  logs,  trees,  and 
every  conceivable  kind  of  driftwood  went  rush- 
ing by  the  houses  at  a  fearful  rate  of  swiftness. 
The  night  was  one  to  fill  the  stoutest  heart  with 
dread,  and  the  dawn  of  day  on  Saturday  morning 
was  anxiously  awaited  by  thousands  of  people. 

In  the  meantime  men  in  boats  were  busy  dur- 
ing the  night  taking  people  from  their  .houses  in 
the  lower  portions  of  the  city,  and  conveying  them 
to  places  of  imagined  security. 

When  day  dawned  on  June  ist,  the  water  was 
still  rising  at  a  rapid  rate.  The  city  was  then 


4  ,o  THE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

completely  inundated,  or  at  least  all  that  portion 
lying  east  of  the  high  lands  in  the  Third  and 
Fourth  Wards.  It  was  nearly  three  o'clock  Sat- 
urday afternoon  before  the  water  reached  the 
highest  mark.  It  then  was  about  three  feet  above 
the  high- water  mark  of  1885. 

At  four  o'clock  Saturday  evening  the  flood  be- 
gan to  subside,  slowly  at  first,  and  it  was  nearly 
night  on  Sunday  before  the  river  was  again  within 
its  banks.  Six  persons  are  reported  missing  at 
Salona,  and  the  dead  bodies  of  Mrs.  Alexander 
Whiting  and  Mrs.  William  Emenheisen  were  re- 
covered at  Mill  Hall  and  that  of  a  six-year  old 
child  near  by.  The  loss  there  is  terrible,  and  the 
community  is  in  mourning  over  the  loss  of  life. 

G.  W.  Dunkle  and  wife  had  a  miraculous 
escape  from  drowning  early  Saturday  A.  M. 
They  were  both  carried  away  on  the  top  of  their 
house  from  Salona  to  Mill  Hall,  where  they  were 
both  rescued  in  a  remarkable  manner.  A  window 
in  the  house  of  John  Stearn  was  kicked  out,  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dunkle  taken  in  the  aperture, 
both  thus  being  rescued  from  a  watery  grave. 

Near  by  a  baby  was  saved,  tied  in  a  cradle.  It 
was  a  pretty,  light-haired  light  cherub,  and  seem- 
ed all  unconscious  of  the  peril  through  which  it 
passed  on  its  way  down  the  stream.  The  town 
of  Mill  Hall  was  completely  gutted  by  the  flood, 
entailing  heavy  loss  upon  the  inhabitants. 


THE  JOHNSTOWN  fLOOD. 

The  town  of  Renovo  was  completely  wrecked. 
Two  spans  of  the  river  bridge  and  the  opera- 
house  were  swept  away.  Houses  and  business 
places  were  carried  off  or  damaged  and  there  was 
some  loss  of  life.  At  Hamburg  seven  persons 
were  drowned  by  the  flood,  which  carried  away 
almost  everything  in  its  path. 

Bellefonte  escaped  the  flood's  ravages,  and  lies 
high  and  dry.  Some  parts  of  Centre  County 
were  not  so  fortunate,  however,  especially  in  Co- 
burn  and  Miles  Townships,  where  great  destruc- 
tion is  reported.  Several  persons  were  drowned 
at  Coburn,  Mrs.  Roust  and  three  children  among 
the  number.  The  bodies  of  the  mother  and  one 
child  were  recovered. 

James  Corss,  a  well-known  resident  of  Lock 
Haven,  and  Miss  Emma  Pollock,  a  daughter  of 
ex-Governor  Pollock  of  Philadelphia,  were  married 
at  the  fashionable  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
Philadelphia,  at  noon  of  Wednesday,  June  5th. 
The  cards  were  sent  out  three  weeks  before,  but 
when  it  was  learned  that  the  freshet  had  cut  off 
Lock  Haven  from  communication  with  the  rest 
of  the  world,  and  several  telegrams  to  the  groom 
had  failed  to  bring  any  response,  it  was  purposed 
to  postpone  the  wedding.  The  question  of  post- 
ponement was  being  considered  on  Tuesday  even- 
ing, when  a  dispatch  was  brought  in  saying  that 
the  groom  was  on  his  way  overland.  Nothing 


442  TIIE  JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 

further  was  heard  from  him,  and  the  bride  was 
dressed  and  the  bridal  party  waiting  when  the 
groom  dashed  up  to  the  door  in  a  carriage  at 
almost  noon. 

After  an  interchange  of  joyful  greetings  all 
around,  the  bride  and  groom  set  out  at  once  for 
the  church,  determined  that  they  should  not  be 
late.  On  the  way  to  the  church  the  bride  fainted. 
As  the  church  came  into  view  she  fainted  again, 
and  she  was  driven  leisurely  around  Rittenhouse 
Square  to  give  her  a  chance  to  recover.  She  got 
better  promptly.  The  groom  stepped  out  of  the 
carriage  and  went  into  the  church  by  the  vestry 
way.  The  carriage  then  drove  round  to  the  main 
entrance,  and  the  bride  alighted  with  her  father 
and  her  maids,  and,  taking  her  proper  place  in 
the  procession,  marched  bravely  up  the  aisle, 
while  the  organ  rang  out  the  well-remembered 
notes  of  Mendelssohn's  march.  The  groom  met 
her  at  the  chancel,  the  minister  came  out,  and 
they  were  married.  A  reception  followed. 

The  bride  and  groom  left  on  their  wedding-jour- 
ney in  the  evening.  Before  they  went  the  groom 
told  of  his  journey  from  Lock  Haven.  He  said  that 
the  little  lumber  town  had  been  shut  out  from  the 
rest  of  t|je  world  on  Friday  night.  He  is  a  wid- 
ower, and,  accompanied  by  his  grown  daughter, 
he  started  on  his  journey  on  Monday  at  two 
o'clock.  They  drove  to  Bellefonte,  a  distance  of 


Till-.   JOHNSTOWN  FLOOD. 


443 


twenty-five  miles,  and  rested  there  on  Monday 
night.  They  drove  to  Leedsville  on  Tuesday 
morning.  There,  by  hiring  relays  of  horses  and 
engaging  men  to  carry  their  baggage  and  row 
them  across  streams,  they  succeeded  in  reaching 
Lewistown,  a  distance  of  sixty-five  miles,  by 
Tuesday  night.  At  Lewistown  they  found  a  di- 
rect train  for  Philadelphia,  and  arrived  there  on 
Wednesday  forenoon. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

The  opening  of  the  month  of  June  will  long  be 
remembered  with  sadness  and  dismay  by  thou- 
sands of  people  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Maryland  and  the  two  Virginias.  In  the  District 
of  Columbia,  too,  it  was  a  time  of  losses  and  of 
terror.  The  northwestern  and  more  fashionable 
part  of  Washington,  D.  C.,  never  looked  more 
lovely  than  it  did  on  Sunday,  but  along  a  good 
part  of  the  principal  business  thoroughfare,  Penn- 
sylvania avenue,  and  in  the  adjacent  streets  to  the 
southward,  there  was  a  dreary  waste  of  turbid, 
muddy  water,  that  washed  five  and  six  feet  deep 
the  sides  of  the  houses,  filling  cellars  and  base- 
ments and  causing  great  inconvenience  and  con- 
siderable loss  of  property.  Boats  plied  along  the 
avenue  near  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  station 
and  through  the  streets  of  South  Washington.  A 
carp  two  feet  long  was  caught  in  the  ladies'  wait- 
ing-room at  the  Baltimore  and  Potomac  station, 
and  several  others  were  caught  in  the  streets  by 
boys.  These  fish  came  from  the  Government 
Fish  Pond,  the  waters  of  the  Potomac  having  cov- 
ered the  pond  and  allowed  them  to  escape. 

Along  the  river  front  the  usually  calm  Potomac 
was  a  wide,  roaring,  turbulent  stream  of  dirty 

444 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  445 

water,  rushing  madly  onward,  and  bearing  on  its 
swift-moving  surface  logs,  telegraph  poles,  por- 
tions of  houses  and  all  kinds  of  rubbish.  The 
stream  was  nearly  twice  its  normal  width,  and 
flowed  six  feet  and  more  deep  through  the  streets 
along  the  river  front,  submerging  wharves,  small 
manufacturing  establishments,  and  lapping  the 
second  stories  of  mills,  boat-houses  and  fertilizing 
works  in  Georgetown.  It  completely  flooded  the 
Potomac  Flats,  which  the  Government  had  raised 
at  great  expense  to  a  height  in  most  part  of  four 
and  five  feet,  and  inundated  the  abodes  of  poor 
negro  squatters,  who  had  built  their  frame  shanties 
along  the  river's  edge.  The  rising  of  the  waters 
has  eclipsed  the  high-water  mark  of  1877.  The 
loss  was  enormous. 

The  river  began  rising  early  on  Saturday  morn- 
ing, and  from  that  time  continued  to  rise  steadily 
until  five  o'clock  Sunday  afternoon,  when  the  flood 
began  to  abate,  having  reached  a  higher  mark  than 
ever  before  known.  The  flood  grew  worse  and 
worse  on  Saturday,  and  before  noon  the  river  had 
become  so  high  and  strong  that  it  overflowed  the 
banks  just  above  the  Washington  Monument,  and 
backing  the  water  into  the  sewer  which  empties 
itself  at  this  point,  began  to  flow  along  the  streets 
on  the  lower  levels. 

By  nightfall  the  water  in  the  streets  had  in- 
creased to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  tlu-.m 


446  THE  JOfl.VS TO  WN  FL  O OD. 

impassable  by  foot  passengers,  and  boats  were 
ferrying  people  from  the  business  part  of  the 
town  to  the  high  grounds  in  South  Washington. 
The  street  cars  also  continued  running  and  did  a 
thriving  business  conveying  pleasure-seekers,  who 
sat  in  the  windows  and  bantered  one  another  as 
the  deepening  waters  hid  the  floor.  On  Louisiana 
avenue  the  produce  and  commission  houses  are 
located,  and  the  proprietors  bustled  eagerly  about 
securing  their  more  perishable  property,  and 
wading  knee-deep  outside  after  floating  chicken- 
coops.  The  grocery  merchants,  hotel  men  and 
others  hastily  cleared  out  their  cellars  and  worked 
until  the  water  was  waist-deep  removing  their 
effects  to  higher  floors. 

Meanwhile  the  Potomac,  at  the  Point  of  Rocks, 
had  overflowed  into  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio 
Canal,  and  the  two  became  one.  It  broke  open 
the  canal  in  a  great  many  places,  and  lifting  the 
barges  up,  shot  them  down  stream  at  a  rapid  rate. 
Trunks  of  trees  and  small  houses  were  torn  from 
their  places  and  swept  onward. 

The  water  continued  rising  throughout  the 
night,  and  about  noon  of  Sunday  reached  its 
maximum,  three  feet  six  inches  above  high-water 
mark  of  1877,  which  was  the  highest  on  record. 
At  that  time  the  city  presented  a  strange  spectacle. 
Pennsylvania  avenue,  from  the  Peace  monument, 
at  the  foot  of  the  Capitol,  to  Ninth  street,  was 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD.  447 

flooded  with  water,  and  in  some  places  it  was  up 
to  the  thighs  of  horses.  The  cellars  xof  stores 
along  the  avenue  were  flooded,  and  so  were  some 
of  the  main  floors.  In  the  side  streets  south  of 
the  avenue  there  was  six  to  eight  feet  of  water, 
and  yawls,  skiffs  and  canoes  were  everywhere  to 
be  seen.  Communication  except  by  boat  was 
totally  interrupted  between  North  and  South 
Washington.  At  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  sta- 
tion the  water  was  up  to  the  waiting-room. 

Through  the  Smithsonian  and  Agricultural  De- 
partment grounds  a  deep  stream  was  running,  and 
the  Washington  Monument  was  surrounded  on  all 

O 

sides  by  water. 

A  dozen  lives  lost,  a  hundred  poor  families 
homeless,  and  over  $2,000,000  worth  of  property 
destroyed,  is  the  brief  but  terrible  record  of  the 
havoc  caused  by  the  floods  in  Maryland.  Every 
river  and  mountain  stream  in  the  western  half  of 
the  State  has  overflowed  its  banks,  inundating 
villages  and  manufactories  and  laying  waste  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  farm  lands.  The  losses  by 
wrecked  bridges,  washed-out  roadbeds  and  land- 
slides along  the  western  division  of  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad,  from  Baltimore  to  Johnstown, 
reach  half  a  million  dollars  or  more.  The  Chesa- 
peake and  Ohio  Canal,  that  political  bone  of  con- 
tention and  burden  to  Maryland,  which  has  cost 
the  State  many  millions,  is  a  total  wreck.  The 


448  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

Potomac  river,  by  the  side  of  which  the  canal  runs, 
from  Williamsport,  Md.,  to  Georgetown,  D.  C., 
has  swept  away  the  locks,  towpaths,  bridges,  and, 
in  fact,  everything  connected  with  the  canal.  The 
probability  is  that  the  canal  will  not  be  restored, 
but  that  the  canal  bed  will  be  sold  to  one  of  the 
railroads  that  have  been  trying  to  secure  it  for 
several  years.  The  concern  has  never  paid,  and 
annually  has  increased  its  enormous  debt  to  the 
State. 

The  Western  Maryland  Railroad  Company  and 
the  connecting  lines,  the  Baltimore  and  Harris- 
burg,  and  the  Cumberland  Valley  roads,  lose 
heavily.  On  the  mountain  grades  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  there  are  tremendous  washouts,  and  in  some 
sections  the  tracks  are  torn  up  and  the  road-bed 
destroyed.  Several  bridges  were  washed  away. 
Dispatches  from  Shippensburg,  Hagerstown  and 
points  in  the  Cumberland  Valley  state  that  the 
damage  to  that  fertile  farming  region  is  incalculable. 
Miles  of  farm  lands  were  submerged  by  the  tor- 
rents that  rushed  down  from  the  mountains. 
Several  lives  were  lost  and  many  head  of  cattle 
drowned.  At  the  mountain  town  of  Frederick, 
Md.,  the  Monocacy  river,  Carroll  creek  and 
other  streams  combined  in  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion. 

Friday  night  was  one  of  terror  to  the  people  of  • 
that  section.     The  Monocacy  river  rose    rapidly 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  0  OD.  449 

from  the  time  the  rain  ceased  until  last  night, 
when  the  waters  began  to  fall.  The  back-water 
of  the  river  extended  to  the  eastern  limit  of  the 
city,  flooding  everything  in  its  path  and  riding 
over  the  fields  with  a  fierce  current  that  meant 
destruction  to  crops,  fences  and  everything  in  its 
path.  At  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  bridge  the 
river  rose  thirty  feet  above  low-water  mark.  It 
submerged  the  floor  of  the  bridge  and  at  one 
time  threatened  it  with  destruction,  but  the  break- 
ing away  of  300  feet  of  embankment  on  the  north 
side  of  the  bridge  saved  the  structure.  With  the 
300  feet  of  embankment  went  300  feet  of  track. 
The  heavy  steel  rails  were  twisted  by  the  waters 
as  if  they  had  been  wrenched  in  the  jaws  of  a 
mammoth  vise.  The  river  at  this  point  and  for 
many  miles  along  its  course  overflowed  its  banks 
to  the  width  of  a  thousand  feet,  submerging  the 
corn  and  wheat  fields  on  either  side  and  carrying 
everything  before  it.  Just  below  the  railroad 
bridge  a  large  wooden  turnpike  bridge  was 
snapped  in  two  and  carried  down  the  tide.  In 
this  way  a  half-dozen  turnpike  bridges  at  various 
points  along  the  river  were  carried  away.  The 
loss  to  the  counties  through  the  destruction  of 
these  bridges  will  foot  up  many  thousand  dollars. 
Mrs.  Charles  McFadden  and  Miss  Maggie 
Moore,  of  Taneytown,  were  drowned  in  their  car- 
riage while  attempting  to  cross  a  swollen  stream. 
26 


4  5  O  THE  JOHNS  TO  IV N  FL  O  OD. 

The  horse  and  vehicle  were  swept  down  the  stream, 
and  when  found  were  lodged  against  a  tree.  Miss 
Moore  was  lying  half-way  out  of  the  carriage,  as 
though  she  had  died  in  trying  to  extricate  herself. 
Mrs.  McFadden's  body  was  found  near  the  car- 
riage. At  Knoxville  considerable  damage  was 
done,  and  at  Point  of  Rocks  people  were  compelled 
to  seek  the  roofs  of  their  houses  and  other  places 
of  safety.  A  family  living  on  an  island  in  the 
middle  of  the  river,  opposite  the  Point,  fired  off  a 
gun  as  a  signal  of  distress.  They  were  with  diffi- 
culty rescued.  In  Frederick  county,  Md.,  the  losses 
aggregate  $300,000. 

The  heaviest  damage  in  Maryland  was  in  the 
vicinity  of  Williamsport,  Washington  county.  The 
railroads  at  Hagerstown  and  Williamsport  were 
washed  out.  The  greatest  loser  is  the  Cumber- 
land Valley  Railroad.  Its  new  iron  bridge  across 
the  Potomac  river  went  down,  nothing  being  left 
of  the  structure  except  the  span  across  the  canal. 
The  original  cost  of  the  bridge  was  $70,000.  All 
along  the  Potomac  the  destruction  was  great.  At 
and  near  Williamsport,  where  the  Conococheague 
empties  into  the  Potomac,  the  loss  was  very  heavy. 

At  Falling  Waters,  where  only  a  few  days 
before  a  cyclone  caused  death  and  destruction, 
two  houses  went  down  in  the  angry  water,  and  the 
little  town  was  almost  entirely  submerged.  In 
Carroll  County,  Md.,  the  losses  reached  several 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  451 

hundred  thousand  dollars.  George  Derrick  was 
drowned  at  Trevanion  Mills,  on  Pipe  creek. 
Along  the  Patapsco  river  in  Howard  county 
great  damage  was  done  to  mills  and  private 
property.  Near  SykesviHe  the  water  undermined 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  track  and  a 
freight  train  was  turned  over  an  embankment. 
William  Hudson  was  standing  on  the  Suspension 
Bridge,  at  Orange  Grove,  when  the  structure  was 
swept  away,  and  he  was  never  seen  again. 

Port  Deposit,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Susque- 
hanna  river,  went  under  water.  Residents  along 
the  river  front  left  their  homes  and  took  refuge  on 
the  hills  back  of  the  town.  The  river  was  filled 
with  thousands  of  logs  from  the  broken  booms  up 
in  the  timber  regions.  From  the  eastern  and 
southern  sections  of  the  State  came  reports  of 
entire  fruit  farms  swept  away.  Two  men  were 
drowned  in  the  storm  by  the  capsizing  of  a  sloop 
near  Salisbury. 

A  number  of  houses  on  the  Shenandoah  and 
Potomac  rivers  near  Harper's  Ferry  were  de- 
stroyed by  the  raging  waters  which  came  thunder- 
ing down  from  the  mountains,  thirty  to  forty  feet 
higher  than  low-water  mark.  John  Brown's  fort 
was  nearly  swept  away.  The  old  building  has 
withstood  a  number  of  floods.  There  is  only  a 
rickety  portion  of  it  standing,  anyhow,  and  that  is 
now  covered  with  mud  and  rubbish.  While  the 


45  2  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FLOOD. 

crowds  on  the  heights  near  Harper's  Ferry  were 
watching  the  terrible  work  of  destruction,  a  house 
was  seen  coming  down  the  Potomac.  Upon  its 
roof  were  three  men  wildly  shouting  to  the  people 
on  the  hills  to  save  them.  Just  as  the  structure 
struck  the  railroad  bridge,  the  men  tried  to  catch 
hold  of  the  flooring  and  iron  work,  but  the  swift 
torrent  swept  them  all  under,  and  they  were  seen 
no  more.  What  appeared  to  be  a  babe  in  a  cradle 
came  floating  down  behind  them,  and  a  few 
moments  later  the  body  of  a  woman,  supposed  to 
be  the  mother  of  the  child,  swept  by.  Robert 
Connell,  a  farmer  living  upon  a  large  island  in  the 
Potomac,  known  as  Herter  Island,  lost  all  his 
wheat  crop  and  his  cattle.  His  family  was  rescued 
by  Clarence  Stedman  and  E.  A.  Keyser,  an  artist 
from  Washington,  at  the  risk  of  their  lives.  The 
fine  railroad  bridge  across  the  Shenandoah,  near 
Harper's  Ferry,  was  destroyed.  The  Ferry  Mill 
Company  sustained  heavy  losses. 

Along  the  South  Mountains,  in  Washington 
and  Alleghany  counties,  Md.,  the  destruction  was 
terrible.  Whole  farms,  including  the  houses  and 
barns,  were  swept  away  and  hundreds  of  live  stock 
killed.  Between  Williamsport,  Md.,  and  Dam  No. 
6  on  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal  twenty-six 
houses  were  destroyed,  and  it  is  reported  that 
several  persons  were  drowned.  The  homeless 
families  are  camping  out  on  the  hills,  being  sup- 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  453 

plied  with  food  and  clothing  by  the  citizens  of 
Williamsport. 

Joseph  Shifter  and  family  made  a  narrow  escape. 
They  were  driven  to  the  roof  of  their  house  by  the 
rising  waters,  and  just  a  minute  before  the  struc- 
ture collapsed  the  father  caught  a  rowboat  passing 
by,  and  saved  his  wife  and  little  ones. 

The  town  of  Point  of  Rocks,  on  the  Potomac 
river,  twelve  miles  eastward  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
was  half-submerged.  Nearly  $100,000  worth  of 
property  in  the  town  and  vicinity  was  swept  away. 
The  Catholic  Church  there  is  500  feet  from  the 
river.  The  extent  of  the  flood  here  may  be  im- 
agined when  it  is  stated  that  the  water  was  up  to 
the  eaves  of  the  church. 

The  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal  has  been 
utterly  lost,  and  what  formerly  was  the  bed  of  the 
canal  is  now  part  of  the  Potomac  river.  There 
were  but  few  houses  in  Point  of  Rocks  that  were 
not  under  water.  The  Methodist  Church  had 
water  in  its  second  story.  The  two  hotels  of 
which  the  place  boasts,  the  American  and  the  St. 
Charles,  were  full  of  water,  and  any  stranger  in 
town  had  to  hunt  for  something  to  eat. 

Every  bridge  in  Frederick  county,  Md.,  was 
washed  away.  Some  of  these  bridges  were  built 
as  long  ago  as  1834,  and  were  burned  by  the 
Confederate  and  Union  forces  at  various  times  in 
1864,  afterward  being  rebuilt.  At  Martinsburg, 


454  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  O  OD. 

W.  Va.,  a  number  of  houses  were  destroyed. 
Little  Georgetown,  a  village  on  the  Upper  Poto- 
mac, near  Williamsport,  Md.,  was  entirely  swept 
away. 

Navigation  on  Chesapeake  Bay  was  seriously 
interrupted  by  the  masses  of  logs,  sections  of 
buildings  and  other  ruins  afloat.  Several  side- 
wheel  steamers  were  damaged  by  the  logs  strik- 
ing the  wheels.  Looking  southward  for  miles 
from  Havre  de  Grace,  the  mouth  of  the  Susque- 
hanna,  and  far  out  into  the  bay  the  water  was 
thickly  covered  with  the  floating  wood.  Crowds 
of  men  and  boys  were  out  on  the  river  securing 
the  choicest  logs  of  hard  wood  and  bringing  them 
to  a  safe  anchorage.  By  careful  count  it  was 
estimated  that  200  logs,  large  and  small,  were 
swept  past  Havre  de  Grace  every  minute.  At 
that  rate  there  would  be  12,000  logs  an  hour.  It 
is  estimated  that  over  70,000,000  feet  of  cut  and 
uncut  timber  passed  Havre  de  Grace  within  two 
days.  Large  rafts  of  dressed  white  pine  boards 
floated  past  the  city.  The  men  who  saved  the 
logs  got  from  25  cents  to  $i  for  each  log  for  sal- 
vage from  the  owners,  who  sent  men  down  the 

o 

river  to  look  after  the  timber.  Enough  logs  have 
been  saved  to  give  three  years'  employment  to 
men,  and  mills  will  be  erected  to  saw  up  the  stuff. 
Not  within  the  memory  of  the  oldest  inhabitants 
had  Petersburg,  Virginia,  been  visited  by  a  flood 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  OOD.  45  5 

as  fierce  and  destructive  as  that  which  surprised 
it  on  Saturday  and  Sunday.  The  whole  population 
turned  out  to  see  the  sight. 

The  storm  that  did  such  havoc  in  Virginia  and 
West  Virginia  on  Thursday  reached  Gettysburg 
on  Saturday  morning.  The  rain  began  at  7  o'clock 
Friday  morning  and  continued  until  3  o'clock 
Saturday.  It  was  one  continuous  down-pour  during 
all  that  time.  As  a  result,  the  streams  were  higher 
than  they  had  been  for  twenty-five  years.  By 
actual  measurement  the  rain-fall  was  4.15  inches 
between  the  above  hours.  Nearly  every  bridge 
in  the  county  was  either  badly  damaged  or  swept 
away,  and  farmers  who  lived  near  the  larger 
streams  mourn  for  their  fences  carried  away  and* 
grain  fields  ruined.  Both  the  railroads  leading  to 
the  town  had  large  portions  of  their  embankments 
washed  out  and  many  of  their  bridges  disturbed. 
On  the  Baltimore  and  Harrisburg  division  of  the 
Western  Maryland  Railroad  the  damage  was 
great.  At  Valley  Junction  1000  feet  of  the 
embankment  disappeared,  and  at  Marsh  creek, 
on  the  new  branch  of  the  road  to  Hagerstown, 
four  divisions  of  the  bridge  were  swept  away. 

But  at  Pine  Grove  and  Mount  Holly  perhaps 
the  greatest  damage  was  done.  The  large  Laudel 
clam,  which  supplies  the  water  to  run  the  forge  at 
Pine  Grove  furnace,  and  which  covers  thirty  acres 
of  land,  burst.  It  swept  away  part  of  the  furnace 


456  THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FL  o  OD. 

and  a  house.  The  occupants  were  saved  by  men 
wading  in  water  up  to  their  waists.  Every  bridge, 
with  one  exception,  in  Mount  Holly  was  swept 
away  by  the  flood  occasioned  by  the  breaking  of 
the  dam  which  furnished  water  for  the  paper  mills 
at  that  place. 

The  water  at  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  on  Saturday  night 
was  from  a  foot  to  a  foot  and  a  half  higher  than 
ever  before  known.  The  Erie  Railroad  bridge 
was  anchored  in  its  place  by  two  trains  of  loaded 
freight  cars.  The  water  rose  to  the  cars,  which, 
with  the  bridge,  acted  as  a  dam,  and  forced  the 
water  back  through  the  city  on  the  north  side  of 
the  Chemifng  river,  where  the  principal  business 
houses  are  located.  The  water  covered  the  streets 
to  a  depth  of  two  or  three  feet,  and  the  basements 
of  the  stores  were  quickly  flooded,  causing  thou- 
sands of  dollars  of  damage.  The  only  possible 
way  of  entering  the  Rathbone  House,  the  princi- 
pal hotel  of  the  city  and  on  the  chief  business 
street,  was  by  boats,  which  were  rowed  directly 
into  the  hotel  office.  On  the  south  side  of  the 
river  the  waters  were  held  in  check  for  several 
hours  by  the  ten-foot  railroad  embankment,  but 
hundreds  of  families  were  driven  into  the  upper 
stories  of  their  houses.  Late  in  the  evening,  two 
thousand  feet  of  the  embankment  was  forced 
away,  and  the  water  carried  the  railroad  tracks 
and  everything  else  before  it.  An  extensive  lurn- 


THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL OOD.  457 

ber  yard  in  the  path  of  the  rushing  water  was 
swept  away.  Many  horses  were  drowned,  and  the 
people  living  on  the  flats  were  rescued  with  great 
difficulty  by  the  police  and  firemen. 

A  terrible  rain-storm  visited  Andover,  N.  Y. 
All  the  streams  were  swollen  far  above  high-water 
mark,  and  fields  and  roads  were  overflowed.  No 
less  than  a  dozen  bridges  in  this  town  were  carried 
away,  and  newly  planted  crops  were  utterly  ruined. 
The  water  continued  to  rise  rapidly  until  4  o'clock. 
At  that  hour  the  two  dams  at  the  ponds  above  the 
village  gave  away,  and  the  water  rushed  wildly 
down  into  the  village.  Nearly  every  street  in  the 
place  was  overflowed,  and  in  many  cases  occupants 
of  houses  were  driven  to  the  upper  floors  for 
safety.  Owen's  large  tannery  was  flooded  and 
ruined.  Almost  every  rod  of  railroad  track  was 
covered  and  much  of  it  will  have  to  be  rebuilt. 
The  track  at  some  points  was  covered  fifteen  feet 
with  earth. 

At  Wellsville,  N.  Y.,  the  heavy  rain  raised 
creeks  into  rivers  and  rivers  into  lakes.  Never, 
in  the  experience  of  the  oldest  inhabitant,  had 
Wellsville  been  visited  with  such  a  flood.  Both 
ends  of  the  town  were  submerged,  water  in  many 
cases  standing  clear  to  the  roofs  of  houses. 

Canisteo,  N.  Y.,  was  invaded  by  a  flood  the 
equal  of  which  had  never  been  known  or  seen  in 
that  vicinity  before.  Thursday  afternoon  a  driz- 


458  THE  JOHNSTO  WN  FL  0  OD. 

zling  rain  began  and  continued  until  it  became  a 
perfect  deluge.  The  various  creeks  and  moun- 
tain rills  tributary  to  the  Caniesto  river  became 
swollen  and  swept  into  the  village,  inundating 
many  of  the  streets  to  the  depth  of  three  feet 
and  others  from  five  to  seven  feet.  The  streets 
were  scarcely  passable,  and  all  stores  on  Main 
and  the  adjacent  streets  were  flooded  to  a 
depth  of  from  one  to  two  feet  and  much  of  the 
stock  was  injured  or  spoiled.  Many  houses  were 
carried  avtay  from  their  foundations,  and  several 
narrow  escapes  from  death  were  made. 

One  noble  deed,  worthy  of  special  mention,  was 
performed  by  a  young  man,  who  waded  into  the 
water  where  the  current  was  swift  and  caught  a 
baby  in  his  arms  as  it  was  thrown  from  the  window 
of  a  house  that  had  just  been  swept  from  its  founda- 
tion. 

The  Fire  Department  Building,  one  of  the  most 
costly  blocks  in  town,  was  undermined  by  the  flood 
and  the  greater  part  fell  to  the  ground  with  a 
crash.  The  town  jail  was  almost  destroyed. 

The  inundation  in  the  coal,  iron  and  lumber 
country  around  Sunbury,  Penn.,  occasioned  much 
destruction  and  suffering,  while  no  less  than  fifty 
lives  were  lost.  The  Susquehanna,  Allegheny,  Bald 
Eagle,  Sinnamahoning  and  Huntingdon  Railways 
suffered  greatly,  and  the  losses  incurred  reach,  in 
round  numbers,  $2,000,000.  In  Clearfield,  Clin- 


THE  JOHNS  TO  WN  FLOOD.  459 

ton,  Lycoming,  Elk,  Cameron,  Northumberland, 
Centre,  Indiana,  McKean,  Somerset,  Bedford, 
Huntingdon,  Blair  and  Jefferson  counties  the  rain- 
storm was  one  of  unprecedented  severity.  The 
mountain  streams  grew  into  great  rivers,  which 
swept  through  the  country  with  irresistible  fury 
and  force,  and  carried  devastation  in  all  directions. 
The  destruction  in  the  Allegheny  Valley  at  and 
near  Dubois,  Red  Bank,  New  Bethlehem  and 
Driftwood  was  immense,  hardly  a  saw-mill  being 
left  standing. 


University  of  California 

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305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

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